The Supernatural Resurrection
by Riley.Quinn5
Summary: Sam is slipping. Dean should be dead. And the majority of their dead family is suddenly standing here, in front of them. Mary, John, Bobby, Jessica, Jo, Ellen, and Charlie are no longer a part of the past. How will the brothers deal with their sudden return?
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

"Sam!" Dean yelled. "I got a lead!"

Dean sighed as Sam trudged in, not paying attention. Sam clearly was trying to cover up the bandages on his left arm, but Dean wasn't stupid. He knew exactly what they were from. He didn't approve, how could he? But Sam was hurting, and if it took the pain away, even for a moment, then Dean couldn't argue. Sam walked right past him and grabbed a bottle of whiskey before heading back to his room.

"Sam!" Dean yelled again.

"What, Dean?" He asked, letting the sleep invade his voice. "Can't I just go back to bed?"

"No, Sam, you can't. I have a lead, and we're going to follow it through," Dean insisted.

"You go. I'm too tired," Sam said before retreating to his room.

"Sam! I can't go alone. My intel says it's a pack of vamps," Dean yelled after him. He sighed and went to leave, when Sam came back in with his gun and told him to get a move on as he headed for his truck.

They finally got to the warehouse and there was absolutely no trace of any vampires, so they ditched the machetes and went in with their guns raised just in case. The sight they were met with was impossible. Mary, John, Bobby, Jessica, Jo, Ellen, and Charlie were standing there, in front of them. Sam demanded to know what they were, while Dean tested them with holy water, silver knives, Christo, the whole lot. Nothing happened. Sam stared in confusion as John tackled him to the ground, wrestling him for the gun.

The group watched as John and Sam wrestled for the gun. Mary walked up to Dean.

"Dean?" She asked hesitantly. He turned and took a step back.

"Mom," he said with a pang of hurt in his voice.

Just then a gunshot rang out and Dean ran to separate John and Sam before they killed each other, with the help of Bobby.

"Not even back for five minutes and you two idgits are already back at it," Bobby says in disapproval.

"Sam. Sam! Calm down!" Dean yells, turning Sam to face him. "They're them, okay, I checked. They're real, now calm down."

Sam visibly relaxes, and turns to face John. "Dad?"

"Sammy," John says with a smile, and hugs him, Sam still being in shock. They pull away quickly, and John moves on to Dean.

"I'm, uh, I'm gonna head back, Dean. I need a minute to process all of this," Sam announces, glancing at Jessica.

"Woah, Sam, wait. We need your truck to take some of them back. They won't all fit in the Impala," Dean exclaims.

"Right. Um, I can fit four people," Sam offers.

Immediately, Jessica joins Sam, along with Bobby, Mary, and Charlie.

"Okay, let's go guys, the bunker isn't too far from here," Sam says, leading them to his truck, where Jess takes the passenger seat, and the other three squeeze into the back, Charlie stuck between Bobby and Mary, neither of which she knows.

"Sam. What happened to you, boy? You've changed so much in just a couple of years," Bobby comments, catching Mary's attention.

"What do you mean?" Mary asks, confused.

"A lot has happened in five years, Bobby. I guess everything that's happened to us has just caught up to me," Sam explains, starting the truck and driving away, the Impala following close behind.

By the time they got back to the bunker, everyone was ambushing both Sam and Dean with questions that they didn't want to answer. Mainly being Mary, John, and Jessica.

As the door to the bunker was opened, Gabriel could be seen waiting downstairs.

"Gabriel? What the hell is going on?" Sam demands, barely being held back by Dean.

"My father wanted me to send his thanks, you know, for saving the world. Again," Gabriel explained before flying away.

At this, the questions came back in multitudes, the top ones being 'what is he talking about' and 'how did he disappear like that.'

"I guess you're about to find out," Sam said, discovering the hundreds of episodes lined up in order on the projector screen set up in the bunker.

"Is this your life?" Jessica asks.

"I'd assume. But to be honest, I would rather not relive my life's greatest hits, so, enjoy," Sam said as he walked out of the room, back to bed.

"I'm sorry about him. I have to agree, though, I don't want to watch this either, sorry," Dean says, about to leave as well.

"Wait! Dean, right? What happened to him? Sam, I mean. Why is he so… different?" Jess asks.

"I guess you're about to find out. Enjoy," Dean says, leaving. He finds Sam in his room, downing the bottle of whiskey. He grabs it from him and helps him into bed, changing his clothes and removing his boots, which proved to be a difficult task, considering Sam's clothing choice had changed to black ripped jeans, a black T-shirt, and a new black leather jacket, along with a black beanie to top it all off. He knew Sam was acting off. He suspected it was Lucifer, but it wasn't like this before. He wasn't acting crazy, maybe he was using, and drinking a lot, and possibly cutting himself, but he wasn't crazy. He had a handle on reality. That's all he could ask for.

Meanwhile, Charlie got the video up and running and they settled down to watch it, when John held Mary close, both of them recognizing the scene in front of them.


	2. Pilot

**Pilot**

**Lawrence, Kansas**

**22 years ago**

_Mary carries Dean into Sam's nursery, and places him down. "Come on, let's say goodnight to your brother."_

_Mary turns on the lights and Dean leans over the crib, placing a kiss on Sam's forehead. _

_"'__Night, Sam," Dean whispers. Mary leans over as well, and places a kiss on Sam's forehead. _

_"__Good night, love," she whispers to him. _

_"__Hey, Dean," John says from the doorway._

"Dean was adorable!" Charlie exclaims from her spot on the couch.

"I know. He was, wasn't he," Mary smiles sadly.

"Oh god. Mary, is this where, you, you know…" Bobby trails off, unsure of whether to continue.

"Yes. This is where I die," she says as the video continues.

_"__Daddy!" Dean exclaims and runs into his arms._

_"__Hey, buddy," John says. "So what do you think? You think Sammy's ready to toss around a football yet?"_

_"__No, Daddy," Dean says, shaking his head and laughing._

_As Mary passes John and Dean, she asks, "You got him?"_

_"__I got him," John responds with a smile._

_"__Sweet dreams, Sam," John says before turning off the lights and leaving the room with Dean._

As the video continues to play, John interlocks his fingers with Mary's, trying his best to comfort her.

_Mary starts to stir in bed as the baby monitor starts crackling. _

_"__John?" Mary asks, but John isn't in bed._

_She gets up to check on Sam and sees a man in Sam's nursery. She assumes it's John, so she turns around to go back to bed when she sees the light flickering down the hall. Then she hears the war movie downstairs and sees John asleep on the couch. Her eyes grow wide, and she runs upstairs to check on Sam._

_"__Sammy! Sammy!" She yells._

_Mary enters Sam's nursery and stops short. Her screams are heard from downstairs and they wake John, who scrambles out of the chair._

_"__Mary!" He yells, running upstairs._

_He slams the door open and the room is empty. He walks over to Sam, who is awake in his crib._

_"__Hey, Sammy. You okay?" He says as he notices a couple of drops of blood next to Sam's head._

_He looks up and sees Mary, her stomach red with blood. "No! Mary!" _

_Mary bursts into flames, engulfing the room in fire. John falls to the ground, frozen. He hears Sam's screams and snaps out of it, carrying Sam out of the room and placing him in Dean's waiting arms._

_"__Daddy!" Dean yells as John shoves him into his arms._

_"__Take your brother outside as fast as you can and don't look back! Now, Dean, go!" John yells._

_Dean turns and runs, as John runs back into the nursery to try and save his wife. "Mary! No!"_

_Dean runs outside, cradling Sam to his chest. "It's okay, Sammy," he whispers, just as John comes running out, scooping up Dean and Sam, carrying them both away, just as the fire explodes out of the window. "I gotcha," he whispers to them._

_The Lawrence Fire Department has arrived. A crowd has gathered around the house, and police officers are holding the people back._

_Across the street from the house, John and Dean sit on the hood of John's Impala, John holding Sam. John looks up at the remnants of the fire with a look of vengeance._

**Stanford University**

**Present Day**

_"__Sam!" Jess calls, coming around the corner in a sexy nurse costume. "Get a move on, would you?"_

"Sam went to Stanford!" Mary exclaims in shock.

"Yeah, with a full ride. He had a law interview lined up, too, before…" Jess trails off.

"What happened?" Mary asks.

"You'll see," she says, shuddering. Mary pulls her close and hugs her.

_"__We were supposed to be there like fifteen minutes ago," Jess says, walking off. "Sam! You coming or what?"_

_Sam pokes his head around the corner, not wearing a costume. "Do I have to?"_

_"__Yes! It'll be fun," Jess says, smiling. "And where's your costume?"_

_Sam laughs and ducks his head. "You know how I feel about Halloween."_

_At the bar, Sam and Jess are drinking shots with their friend Luis, who is wearing a ghoul costume._

_"__So here's to Sam and his awesome LSAT victory," Jess raises a glass._

_"__All right, all right, it's not that big a deal," Sam says, downing a shot._

_"__Yeah, he acts all humble, but he scored a 174," Jess says, impressed._

"No way. I couldn't get half that in school. He shouldn't be hunting," Jo says, not knowing Sam was so smart.

"Sam was different after Stanford. I saw him a few times. He was truly happy with you, Jessica. Don't forget that," Bobby tells her, offering a small smile, which she returns as a thank you.

_Luis drinks his shot and so does Sam. "Is that good?" Luis asks._

_"__Scary good," Jess answers, laughing and drinking another shot._

_"__So there you go. You are a first-round draft pick. You can go to any law school you want!" Luis yells, sitting next to Sam._

"Law school, huh," Mary says, impressed.

"Yeah, I know. I was so proud of him, Mary. I may not have shown it, but I was," John says with a smile.

_"__Actually, I got an interview here. Monday. If it goes okay I think I got a shot at a full ride next year," Sam says nervously._

_"__Hey. It's gonna go great," Jess encourages him._

_"__It better," Sam said with a small smile._

_"__How does it feel to be the golden boy of your family?" Luis asks._

_"__Ah, they don't know," Sam says, as Jessica looks at him nervously, knowing he doesn't like to talk about his family._

Mary glanced at John when Sam said that and saw the guilt and regret in his eyes, and decided to let it go for the moment.

_"__On no, I would be gloating! Why not?" Luis asks again._

_"__Because we're not exactly the Brady's," Sam says, brushing the comment off by throwing peanuts at him._

_"__And I'm not exactly the Huxtables. More shots?" Luis says as he walks towards the bar, ignoring the protests of both Sam and Jessica._

_"__No seriously. I'm proud of you. And you're gonna knock 'em dead on Monday, and you're gonna get that full ride," she says smiling at him._

_"__What would I do without you?" Sam asks, smiling back._

_"__Crash and burn," Jessica says, pulling him in for a kiss._

"God, you two make me wish I was straight," Charlie says jokingly, making everybody laugh.

"Thank you, I guess?" Jessica says, earning even more laughs.

_Sam and Jess lie in bed, asleep. Sam opens his eyes at the sound of a window opening. He leaves the bedroom and looks around the apartment, seeing if someone was inside._

"God, John, I never approved of the way you treated those boys like soldiers, but right now, watching this, I'm glad you made them prepared," Bobby says with pride.

"Thanks, Bobby, I really appreciate that," John says, handing Bobby a beer.

_A man walks past the wall and Sam slowly moves forward, attacking the intruder from behind. They start fighting, it seems like the other man is winning, then he pins Sam to the ground. "Whoa, easy, tiger," Dean says, slightly out of breath._

_"__Dean?" Sam asks, making Dean laugh. "You scared the crap out of me!"_

_"__That's 'cause you're out of practice," Dean says as Sam grabs Dean's hand and yanks, slamming his heel into Dean's back and effectively pinning Dean to the floor. "Or not." _

_"__Get off of me," Dean says, Sam helping him up._

_"__What the hell are you doing here?" Sam demands._

_"__Well, I was looking for a beer," Dean jokes, shaking Sam's shoulders._

_"__What the hell are you doing here?" Sam demands again, getting irritated._

_"__Okay. All right. We gotta talk," Dean says, finally serious._

_"__Uh, the phone?" Sam questions._

_"__If I'd'a called, would you have picked up?" Dean asks._

_By this time, Jess had joined them, and she turned on the light. "Sam?"_

_"__Jess. Hey. Dean, this is my girlfriend, Jessica," Sam explains._

_Dean looks at her with a smirk._

_"__Wait, your brother Dean?" Jessica realizes, smiling. Sam nods, and Dean moves closer._

_"__Oh, I love the Smurfs. You know, I gotta tell you. You are completely out of my brother's league," Dean flirts._

_"__Just let me put something on," Jess says, turning to leave._

_"__No, no, no, I wouldn't dream of it. Seriously," Dean says, noticing Sam's glare._

_"__Anyway, I gotta borrow your boyfriend here, talk about some private family business. But, uh, nice meeting you," Dean says, turning back to Sam._

_"__No," Sam says, putting an arm around Jess. "No, whatever you want to say, you can say it in front of her."_

"I think that was the moment I knew I was completely in love with him. I mean, I knew it before, but that just confirmed it," Jessica says with a smile on her face. Mary smiles at her, proud of her son.

_"__Okay. Um, dad hasn't been home in a few days," Dean says, eyeing both of them._

_"__So he's working overtime on a Miller Time shift. He'll stumble back in sooner or later," Sam says, making Dean duck his head and explain again._

_"__Dad's on a hunting trip. And he hasn't been home in a few days," Dean says again. Sam's expression doesn't change, but he is worried. Jessica looks up at him nervously._

_"__Jess, excuse us. We have to go outside," Sam excuses them, heading outside with Dean, putting a hoodie on._

_"__I mean, come on. You can't just break in, middle of the night, and expect me to hit the road with you," Sam says, protesting._

_"__You aren't hearing me, Sammy. Dad's missing. I need you to help me find him," Dean says._

_"__You remember the Poltergeist in Amherst? Or the Devil's Gates in Clifton? He was missing then, too. He's always missing and he's always fine," Sam argues._

_Dean stops and turns around, Sam stopping too. "Not for this long. Now are you gonna come with me or not?" _

_"__I'm not," Sam says._

_"__Why not?" Dean asks._

_"__I swore I was done hunting. For good," Sam says._

_"__Come on. It wasn't easy, but it wasn't that bad," Dean says, continuing down the stairs._

_"__Yeah? When I told Dad I was scared of the thing in my closet, he gave me a .45," Sam says, when Dean stops and says, "Well what was he supposed to do?"_

_"__I was nine years old! He was supposed to say, don't be afraid of the dark," Sam says._

"You did what! John Winchester! How dare you give our nine-year-old son a gun! And why did Dean say that was the right thing to do!" Mary exclaimed in shock.

"Mary, I'm sorry, okay, after you died, I was hell-bent on revenge, and I was too hard on the boys. Dean went along with it, he took after me that way. But Sam… Sam hated hunting. Just like you. He went away to college the second he got a chance. And I said something I regretted for years. But both of us were too stubborn to see each other, so when we finally did see each other again, we never got a chance to actually make up before I… died," John explained.

"Okay, but what did you say that was so bad?" Mary asks, wanting answers.

"I told him that if he walks out the door, to never come back," John says.

"John! Seriously!" Mary says, getting angry.

"I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking, okay," John says, kissing Mary.

"It's okay, but John. Sam needed you to be on his side. That's why he left. He figured you say that, you don't really want him," Mary explains.

"Yeah," John agrees.

_"__Don't be afraid of the dark? Are you kidding me? Of course you should be afraid of the dark. You know what's out there," Dean says._

_"__Yeah, I know, but still. The way we grew up, after Mom was killed, and Dad's obsession to find the thing that killed her. But we still haven't found the damn thing. So we kill everything we can find," Sam says._

_"__We save a lot of people doing it, too," Dean says._

_"__You think Mom would have wanted this for us?" Sam says and Dean rolls his eyes, slamming the door open._

At that comment, Mary and John look at each other and Mary tells him she didn't. John looks away and continues watching.

_"__The weapon training, and melting the silver into bullets? Man, Dean, we were raised like warriors," Sam complains._

_"__So what are you gonna do? You're just gonna live some normal, apple pie life? Is that it?" Dean asks._

_"__No, not normal. Safe," Sam corrects._

"Exactly. John, that's exactly what I wanted. I didn't want my children to grow up like I did. As a hunter," Mary says.

"I know, I'm sorry. I was doing my best, like Sam said, I was obsessed," he apologizes, which earns him a small smile from Mary.

"How did I never see any of this? Or hear it? I could have figured it out," Jessica says, lost in her thoughts.

"Hey, none of this is your fault. Okay, Sam was just trying to protect you," Ellen comforts her as she starts crying. Jess looks up and smiles, thanking her.

_"__And that's why you ran away," Dean says, defeated._

_"__I was just going to college. It was Dad who said if I was gonna go I should stay gone. And that's what I'm doing," Sam says._

_"__Yeah, well, Dad's in real trouble right now. If he's not dead already, I can feel it," Dean says._

_Sam stays silent, and Dean tries again, saying, "I can't do this alone."_

_"__Yes you can," Sam argues._

_"__Yeah, but I don't want to," Dean argues back._

_Sam sighs, looks down thinking, and looks back up. "What was he hunting?" _

_Dean opens the trunk of the Impala, then the spare-tire compartment. He props the compartment open with a shotgun and digs through the clutter._

Jessica gasps at the arsenal in Dean's trunk. She looks around and sees everyone is okay with it, so she goes back to watching, worried about Sam's safety.

_"__All right, let's see, where the hell did I put that thing?" Dean says, still searching through everything._

_"__So when Dad left, why didn't you go with him?" Sam asks, curious._

_"__I was working my own gig. This, uh, voodoo thing, down in New Orleans," Dean explains._

_"__Dad let you go on a hunting trip by yourself?" Sam asks incredulously. _

_Dean looks over at Sam. "I'm twenty-six, dude."_

_Dean pulls some paper out of a folder. "All right, here we go. So Dad was checking out this two-lane blacktop just outside of Jericho, California. About a month ago, this guy. They found his car, but he vanished. Completely MIA," Dean says with a smirk._

"So maybe he was kidnapped," Jo says, everybody agreeing with her, except for John, who scowls, making everybody laugh.

_"__So maybe he was kidnapped," Sam says._

"Thank you!" Jo yells, and John scowls again, everybody laughing.

_"__Yeah, well, here's another in April, another one in December '04, '03, '98, '92, ten of them over the past twenty years. All men, all the same five mile stretch of road. It started happening more and more, so Dad went to go dig around. That was about three weeks ago. I hadn't heard from him since, which is bad enough. Then I get this voicemail yesterday," Dean says, pressing play on the recording he pulled out._

_"__Dean…something big is starting to happen…I need to try and figure out what's going on. It may…Be very careful, Dean. We're all in danger," says John's voice from the recording._

_"__You know there's EVP on that" Sam says._

_"__Not bad, Sammy. Kind of like riding a bike, isn't it?" Dean says, Sam shaking his head jokingly._

"Wait, what's EVP?" Jessica asks, confused.

"Electro-magnetic frequencies. It usually shows up when there is a ghost or a spirit present," John explains. Jess nods.

_"__All right. I slowed the message down, I ran it through a gold wave, took out the hiss, and this is what I got," Dean explains. He presses play again. A woman's voice comes through the recording. "I can never go home…"_

_"__Never go home," Sam repeats._

_Dean drops the recorder, puts down the shotgun, and shuts the trunk, leaning on it. "You know, in almost two years I've never bothered you, never asked you for a thing."_

_Sam sighs and looks away, making up his mind. "All right. I'll go. I'll help you find him. But I have to get back first thing Monday. Just wait here."_

_"__What's first thing Monday?" Dean asks._

_"__I have this… I have an interview," Sam says._

_"__What, a job interview? Skip it," Dean says._

"Dean! Oh my god!" Jo yells, glancing at Jessica, who does not look happy, but calms down when Sam corrects him and Dean is cool about it.

_"__It's a law school interview, and it's my whole future on a plate," Sam says, frustrated._

_"__Law school?" Dean says with a smirk, surprised._

_"__So we got a deal or not?" Sam says, walking away, and Dean says nothing._

_Sam is packing a duffel bag, and places a large hook-shaped knife in it, while Jess comes into the room._

_"__Wait, you're taking off?" She asks, surprised. Sam looks up at her. "Is this about your dad? Is he alright?"_

_"__Yeah. You know, just a little family drama," Sam says with a smile._

_"__Your brother says he was on some kind of hunting trip," Jess asks._

_"__Oh, yeah, he's just deer hunting up at the cabin, he's probably got Jim, Jack, and Jose along with him. I'm just gonna go bring him back," Sam says jokingly._

_"__What about the interview?" Jessica asks, slightly worried._

_"__I'll make the interview. This is only for a couple of days," Sam says._

_"__Sam, I mean, please. Just stop for a second. You sure you're okay?" Jess asks, and Sam laughs a little. "I'm fine."_

_"__It's just.. you won't even talk about your family. And now you're taking off in the middle of the night to spend a weekend with them? And with Monday coming up, which is kind of a huge deal," Jessica says, getting worried. _

_"__Hey, everything's going to be okay. I will be back in time, I promise," Sam says, kissing her on the cheek._

_"__At least tell me where you're going!" Jess calls after him._

"That was the last time I ever saw him except for…" Jess says, starting to cry again, with Mary and Ellen both comforting her.

**Jericho, California**

_A man is driving down the highway, talking on his cell phone to his girlfriend. "Amy, I can't come over tonight. Because I've got work in the morning, that's why… Yeah, okay, I miss it and my dad's gonna have my ass," Troy says laughing._

_Troy looks over and sees a woman in a white dress on the side of the road. "Hey, ah, Amy, let me call you back?" _

_Troy pulls up next to the woman, who keeps flickering and has a torn dress. "Car trouble or something?"_

_"__Take me home?" She asks._

_"__Sure, get in," Troy says, opening the door. "So, where do you live?"_

_"__At the end of Breckinridge Road," she answers. Troy nods._

_"__You coming from a Halloween party or something?" Troy asks and stares at her low cut dress, laughing and turning away._

_"__You know, a girl like you really shouldn't be alone out here," Troy says, and the woman looks at him seductively, pulling up her skirt over her thigh._

_"__I'm with you," she whispers._

_Troy looks away, and the woman takes Troy's chin, turning his face towards her._

_"__Do you think I'm pretty?" She asks, and Troy nods, his eyes stuck on her cleavage. "Uh…huh."_

_"__Will you come home with me?" The woman asks._

_"__Um. Hell yeah," Troy says laughing, and drives away._

"Jackass," Charlie mutters under her breath, and Jo and Jessica immediately agree.

_They pull up to an old abandoned house at the end of a road. The woman stares at it sadly._

_"__Come on. You don't live here," Troy says, looking up at it._

_"__I can never go home," she says, before disappearing._

_"__What are you talking about? Nobody even lives here. Where do you live?" Troy asks again, and looks over to see that she is gone._

_"__That's good. Joke's over, okay? You want me to leave?" He asks, getting out of the car. "Hello? Hello?" Troy peers through the screen door and a bird flies at his face, scaring him. He screams and runs back to his car and pulls away frantically. The woman appears in the backseat, and he swerves, driving the car through a 'bridge closed' sign. You can hear his screams as blood splatters across the car window._

"Okay, that guy was an asshole, but nobody deserves that. That's just horrible," Jessica says, absolutely horrified.

_The Impala is parked in front of a pump, and Dean shows up, carrying food and drinks. Sam is sitting in the passenger seat, going through Dean's cassette tapes. "Hey! You want breakfast?"_

"Breakfast? That isn't breakfast. That's junk food," Jessica comments.

"That's breakfast for hunters," John says.

_"__No, thanks. So how'd you pay for that stuff? You and Dad still running credit card scams?" Sam asks, joking._

"Credit card scams!" Jessica says, looking around.

"I know, I didn't like it either, but that's what they do," Charlie says, shrugging her shoulders.

_"__Yeah, well, hunting ain't exactly a pro ball career. Besides, all we do is apply. It's not our fault they send us the cards," Dean says smiling._

_"__Yeah? And what names did you write on the applications this time?" Sam asks._

_"__Uh, Burt Aframian. And his son, Hector. Scored two cards out of the deal," Dean responds with a smile and laughs alongside his brother._

_"__That sounds right. I swear man. You've gotta update your cassette tape collection," Sam says._

_"__Why?" Dean asks, offended._

_"__Well, for one, they're cassette tapes. And two. Black Sabbath? Motorhead? Metallica? It's the greatest hits of the mullet rock," Sam says laughing._

"Yes! You go, Sam!" Jo says, fist-bumping with Charlie.

_"__Well, house rules, Sammy. Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole," Dean smiles._

_"__You know, Sammy is a chubby twelve-year-old. It's Sam, okay?" Sam says, cut off by AC/DC._

_"__Sorry, I can't hear you, the music's too loud," Dean says with a smile and a laugh before driving away._

_As they are driving, they pass a sign that says 'Jericho 7', and Sam is talking on his cell phone, "Thank you." Sam closes his phone._

_"__All right. So there is no one matching Dad at the hospital or morgue, so that's something I guess," Sam says hopefully as Dean pulls up to the crime scene._

_"__Check it out. Let's go," Dean says after grinning and pulling out a fake badge that shows he is a marshal, earning an annoyed look from Sam._

_Deputy Jaffe is leaning over the bridge, asking if they have anything. They found nothing in the river. Troy's car is in the middle of the bridge, and the blood is gone. Deputy Hein joins in._

_"__No sign of struggle, no footprints, no fingerprints. Spotless. It's almost too clean," he says._

_"__So, this kid, Troy. He's dating your daughter, isn't he?" Deputy Jaffe asks._

_"__Yeah," Hein answers._

_"__How's Amy doing?" Jaffe asks as Sam and Dean walk up._

_"__She's putting up missing posters downtown," he answers._

_"__You fellas had another one like this just last month, didn't you?" Dean questions._

_Jaffe looks up to talk to them. "And who are you?"_

_Dean flashes his badge. "Federal marshals."_

_"__You two are a little young for marshals, aren't you?"_

_Dean laughs, "Thanks, that's awfully kind of you."_

_Dean goes over to the car, "You did have another one just like this, correct?"_

_"__Yeah, that's right. About a mile up the road. There've been others before that," Deputy Jaffe answers._

_Sam steps in, "So this victim, you knew him?"_

_Jaffe nods. "Small town like this, everybody knows everybody."_

_"__Any connection between the victims, besides that they're all men?" Dean asks._

_"__No. Not so far as we can tell," Jaffe says._

_"__So what's the theory?" Sam asks, going over to Dean._

_"__Honestly, we don't know. Serial murder? Kidnapping ring?" Jaffe says._

_"__Well, that is exactly the kind of crack police work I'd expect out of you guys," Dean says, earning a look from Jaffe and a hard stomp on the foot from Sam._

_"__Thank you for your time. Gentlemen," Sam says and walks away. Dean catches up and smacks Sam on the head._

"Oh boy. They are a bunch of idiots," Mary says as Jo and Charlie laugh their heads off, Jessica beginning to join in.

_"__Ow! What was that for!" Sam says._

_"__Why'd you have to step on my foot?" Dean asks._

_"__Why do you have to talk to police like that?" Sam counters._

_Dean looks at Sam and moves in front of him, forcing Sam to stop walking. "Come on. They don't really know what's going on. We're all alone on this. I mean, if we're going to find Dad we've got to get to the bottom of this thing ourselves."_

_Sam clears his throat and looks over Dean's shoulder. There are two FBI agents with the sheriff._

_"__Can I help you boys?" Sheriff Pierce asks._

_"__No, sir, we were just leaving," Dean says, nodding to each of them as they pass. "Agent Mulder. Agent Scully."_

_Sam and Dean head past the sheriff, who turns to watch them go._

"Why is Dean so rude to the cops?" Mary asks John, who shrugs as Bobby answers.

"Cause he's an idgit. They both are. Sam changed him, I'll tell you that, ever since they got together, Sam's made him a better person. I mean, don't get me wrong, Dean still follows ass wherever it goes, but I'd say he's getting better," Bobby says, joking.

_A young woman is tacking up posters with Troy's face and the caption 'Missing Troy Squire'. _

_"__I'll bet you that's her," Dean says as they approach._

_"__Yeah," Sam says._

_"__You must be Amy," Dean asks._

_"__Yeah," Amy answers._

_"__Yeah, Troy told us about you. We're his uncles. I'm Dean, this is Sammy," Dean says._

_"__He never mentioned you to me," Amy says._

_"__Well, that's Troy, I guess. We're not around much, we're up in Modesto," Dean explains._

_"__So we're looking for him too, and we're kinda asking around," Sam begins as Amy's friend, Rachel comes up and asks Amy if she's okay, who says yes. "You mind if we ask you a couple of questions?"_

_The four of them are sitting in a booth, talking about Troy. "I was on the phone with Troy. He was driving home. He said he would call me right back, and…he never did," Amy explains._

_"__He didn't say anything strange, or out of the ordinary?" Sam asks._

_Amy shakes her head. "No. Nothing I can remember."_

_"__I like your necklace," Sam says, pointing to the pentagram around her neck, getting a strange look from Dean, who rolls his eyes._

_"__Troy gave it to me. Mostly to scare my parents—" Amy said with a small laugh. "—with all that devil stuff." Sam laughs a little and looks down, then up. Dean looks over again weirdly._

_"__Actually, it means just the opposite. A pentagram is protection against evil. Really powerful. I mean, if you believe in that kind of thing," Sam tells her._

"How does Sam know all that? It's kind of hot," Jessica says, scrunching up her nose.

"Sam always used to love research," John says with a small laugh, when Bobby adds, "Yeah, smart kid that Sam."

_"__Okay. Thank you, unsolved mysteries," Dean jokes before turning back to the girls and getting serious, "Here's the deal, ladies. The way Troy disappeared, something's not right. So if you've heard anything…" _

_Rachel and Amy look at each other, and Dean asks what it is. "Well, it's just…I mean, with all these guys going missing, people talk," Rachel explains._

_"__What do they talk about?" Sam and Dean ask in unison._

"I love it when they do that!" Charlie and Jo yelled in unison, laughing.

_Rachel continues, "It's kind of this local legend. This one girl? She got murdered out on Centennial, like decades ago. Well, supposedly she's still out there. She hitchhikes, and whoever picks her up? Well, they disappear forever." Sam and Dean look at each other._

"Oh my god. It's a woman in white!" Mary yells, quickly covering her mouth.

"How did you figure that out so quickly? It took me like a month," John asks in shock. She just smiles at him, while all of this just confuses Jessica even more, however she doesn't ask, hoping the video will explain everything.

_Dean types 'Female Murder Hitchhiking' into the web browser and clicks search. Nothing comes up. He replaces hitchhiking with centennial highway and still gets nothing._

_"__Let me try," Sam says, getting his hand smacked away by Dean. "I got it," Dean says._

_Sam shoves Dean's chair out of the way and takes over. "Dude!" Dean says, hitting Sam on the shoulder. "You're such a control freak."_

_"__So angry spirits are born out of violent death, right?" Sam says, Dean agreeing. "Well, maybe it's not murder." Sam replaces murder with suicide and an article pops up._

_"__This was 1981. Constance Welch, twenty-four years old, jumps off Sylvania Bridge, drowns in the river," Sam says._

_"__Does it say why she did it?" Dean asks._

_"__Yeah," Sam responds in shock._

_"__What?" Dean asks._

_"__An hour before they found her, she calls 911. Apparently her two little kids are in the bathtub. She leaves them alone for a minute, and when she comes back, they aren't breathing. Both die," Sam says, Dean raising his eyebrow, "Hm."_

_"'__Our babies were gone, and Constance just couldn't bear it,' said husband Joseph Welch," Sam reads. _

_"__That bridge look familiar to you?" Dean asks._

_Dean and Sam walk along the bridge, looking over. "So this is where Constance took the swan dive," Dean says._

_"__Do you think Dad would have been here?" Sam asks Dean, looking over at him._

_"__Well, he's chasing the same story and we're chasing him," Dean says._

_"__Okay, so now what?" asks Sam._

_"__Now we keep digging until we find him," says Dean. Sam stops. "Dean, I told you, I've gotta get back by—"_

_"__Monday. Right. The interview," Dean remembers, Sam nodding his head, "Yeah."_

_"__Yeah, I forgot. You're really serious about this, aren't you? You think you're just going to become some lawyer? Marry your girl?" Dean asks._

_"__Maybe. Why not?" Sam says._

Jessica's hands fly to her mouth as tears leak from her eyes. Mary pulls her close, rubbing her back and stroking her hair to comfort her. She leans into it.

_"__Does Jessica know the truth about you? I mean, does she know about the things you've done?" Dean asks, getting on Sam's nerves._

_"__No, and she's not ever going to," Sam steps in._

"I wish he would have. I wish he trusted me more," Jessica cries into Mary even more.

_"__Well, that's healthy. You can pretend all you want, Sammy. But sooner or later you're gonna have to face up to who you really are," Dean tells him._

_"__And who's that?" Sam asks._

_"__You're one of us," Dean answers. Sam hurries in front of Dean._

_"__No. I'm not like you. This is not going to be my life," Sam says._

_"__You have a responsibility to—" Dean begins. _

_"—To dad? And his crusade? If it weren't for pictures, I wouldn't even know what Mom looks like. And what difference would it make. Even if we do find the thing that killed her, Mom's gone. And she isn't coming back," Sam says. Dean grabs Sam by the collar and shoves him up against the railing of the bridge. _

_"__Don't talk about her like that," Dean says before letting him go, and sees Constance at the end of the bridge. "Sam!" Sam joins him, and she disappears as the Impala's engine starts._

_"__Where'd she go?" Dean asks._

_"__I don't know," Sam responds. They notice the Impala engine running behind them._

_"__What the—" Dean says angrily._

_"__Who's driving your car?" Sam asks as Dean pulls the keys out of his pocket. The car jerks into motion, heading for them. They turn and run. "Dean? Go! Go!" Sam yells. The car gets closer, and they both jump over the railing, and the car stops._

_"__Dean? Dean!" Sam yells, who hung onto the bridge._

_"__What?" Dean yells from the river, covered in mud._

_"__Hey! Are you alright?" Sam yells at him._

_"__I'm super," he responds and Sam laughs at him. Dean gets back up to the bridge and leans on the car with Sam, "Your car all right?"_

_"__Yeah, whatever she did to it, seems all right now. That Constance chick, what a bitch!" Dean yells. Sam sniffs and looks at Dean. "You smell like a toilet."_

_Sam and Dean finally get to a motel and Dean throws down his card that reads Hector Aframian. "One room, please."_

_The clerk looks at the card and asks, "You guys having a reunion or something?"_

_"__What do you mean?" Sam asks._

_"__I had another guy, Burt Aframian. He came and bought out a room for the whole month."_

_Sam picks the lock for John's motel room, and when they enter, it is covered in news articles and photographs. "Whoa." Dean turns on a light by the bed and picks up a half-eaten hamburger sitting there. Sam steps over a line of salt on the floor. Dean sniffs the burger and recoils. "I don't think he's been here for a couple days at least."_

_Sam fingers the salt on the floor and looks up. "Salt, cats-eye shells…he was worried. Trying to keep something from coming in."_

_Dean looks at the paper covering one wall, and Sam asks what it is._

_"__Centennial Highway victims," Dean says. Sam nods. "I don't get it. I mean, different men, different jobs, ages, ethnicities. There's always a connection, right? What do these guys have in common?" Dean asks in confusion._

_Sam turns on another lamp, checking out the papers on another wall. "Dad figured it out. He found the same article we did. Constance Welch. She's a woman in white."_

_Dean looks at the photos of Constance's victims. "You sly dogs."_

"Okay, what's a woman in white? I'm so confused," Jessica finally asks.

"Yeah, I'd like to know that too. I wasn't exactly a hunter," Charlie adds, equally confused.

"Well, a woman in white is usually a woman who is cheated on by her husband in her life, and she goes into a mode of temporary insanity, where she kills her children. When she realizes what she's done, she then goes crazy with grief, and kills herself. She then haunts backroads and highways, killing any man that is unfaithful," Mary explains.

"Okay, so, she kills her children, then herself, then goes on to kill other people as a ghost? All because her husband cheats on her? Creepy," Charlie comments, while Jessica remains silent, wondering whether or not she will go after Sam.

_"__All right, so if we're dealing with a woman in white, Dad would have found the corpse and destroyed it," Dean says._

_"__She may have another weakness," Sam says._

_"__Well, Dad would want to make sure. He'd dig her up. Does it say where she's buried?" Dean asks._

_"__No, not that I can tell. If I were Dad, though, I'd go ask her husband," Sam says, tapping the picture of Joseph Welch. "If he's still alive."_

_"__All right. Why don't you, uh, see if you can find an address, I'm gonna get cleaned up," Dean says, walking towards the shower. _

_"__Hey, Dean?" Sam says, making Dean turn around. "What I said earlier, about Mom and Dad, I'm sorry."_

_Dean holds up a hand, "No chick-flick moments."_

_Sam laughs and nods. "All right. Jerk."_

_"__Bitch."_

"Oh boy," John sighs, followed by Bobby.

"What?" asks Mary with a smile.

"Those boys have been calling each other that since they were kids. It got so bad that they used it in every sentence, earning weird looks and comments everywhere we went. It was adorable, though, when they were younger," John explains, making Mary, Jessica, Jo, Charlie, and even Ellen awe.

_Dean continues to the shower, and Sam finds a picture of John sitting on the hood of the Impala with a young Sam and Dean, which he smiles sadly at._

_As Dean comes out of the shower, Sam is listening to a voicemail message from Jessica, "Hey, it's me, it's about ten-twenty Saturday night—"_

_"__Hey, man, I'm starving, I'm gonna grab a little something to eat in that diner down the street. You want anything?" Dean asks._

_"__No," Sam says, still listening to the voicemail._

_"__Aframian's buying," Dean offers again, which Sam shakes his head at._

_Dean leaves the motel room and sees a police car, where the motel clerk is pointing at him, and he tries to get to the Impala, but they spot him and start walking. Dean pulls out his cell phone, calling Sam to warn him._

_Sam is sitting on the bed, still listening to the message, "So come home, soon, okay? I love you."_

_The phone beeps. Sam looks at it and presses a button, then puts it back to his ear. "What?" _

_"__Dude, 5-0, take off," Dean says frantically._

_Sam stands up. "What about you?"_

_"__Uh, they kinda spotted me," he answers. _

_Dean hangs up the phone as the deputies approach. He turns and grins at them. "Problem, officers?"_

_"__Where's your partner?" Jaffe asks._

_"__Partner? What partner?"_

_Sam sees the deputy approaching and takes off._

_"__So. Fake US Marshal. Fake credit cards. You got anything that's real?" Jaffe asks Dean._

_"__My boobs," Dean says with a grin._

_Hein slams Dean over the hood of the cop car, cuffing him. "You have the right to remain silent—"_

"That was hilarious!" Jo says, who is bent over laughing.

"Joanna Beth Harvelle! Disrespecting cops is no laughing matter!" Ellen scolds her, trying to keep in her own laughs.

_Sheriff Pierce enters the room with a box. "So you want to give us your real name?"_

_"__I told you, it's Nugent. Ted Nugent," Dean answers._

_"__I'm not sure you realize how much trouble you're in here," the sheriff says._

_"__We talkin', like, misdemeanor kind of trouble or, uh, squeal like a pig trouble?" Dean jokes._

_"__You got the faces of ten missing persons taped to your wall," the sheriff says._

_Dean looks away. "Along with a whole lot of Satanic mumbo-jumbo. Boy, you are officially a suspect," he continues._

_"__That makes sense. Because when the first one went missing in '82 I was three."_

_"__I know you've got partners. One of 'em's an older guy. Maybe he started the whole thing. So, tell me, Dean. This his?" Sheriff Pierce asks, throwing John's journal onto the table._

_"__I thought that might be your name. See, I leafed through this. What little I could make out—I mean, it's nine kinds of crazy. But I found this too."_

_He opens the journal to a page that reads 'Dean 35-111', circled, with nothing else on that page._

_"__Now. You're staying right here until you tell me exactly what the hell that means," he says._

_Dean stares down at the page, then looks up._

_Meanwhile, Sam knocks on Joseph Welch's door, who opens it. "Hi. Are you Joseph Welch?"_

_"__Yeah," he answers. Sam shows him the photo of his dad to Joseph and he confirms he was here. "He came by three or four days ago. Said he was a reporter."_

_"__That's right. We're working on a story together," Sam goes along with it._

_"__Well, I don't know what the hell kinda story you're working on. The questions he asked me?"_

_"__About your late wife Constance?" Sam cuts in._

_"__He asked me where she is buried," Joseph says._

_"__And where is that again?" Sam asks._

_"__What, I gotta go through this twice?" He asks, irritated._

_"__It's fact-checking. If you don't mind," Sam says in apology. _

_"__In a plot. Behind my old place over on Breckinridge," Joseph tells Sam._

_"__And why did you move?" Sam asks._

_"__I'm not gonna live in the house where my children died," he says._

_"__Mr. Welch, did you ever marry again?" Sam asks._

_"__No way. Constance, she was the love of my life. Prettiest woman I ever known," he says._

_"__So you had a happy marriage?" Sam pushes. Joseph hesitates, but nods and says, "Definitely."_

_"__Well, that should do it. Thanks for your time," Sam says, walking away, but stops again. "Mr. Welch, have you ever heard of a woman in white?" _

_Joseph turns around. "A what?"_

_"__A woman in white. Or sometimes weeping woman?" Sam asks again._

"What is he doing?" Jessica asks.

"Joseph Welch was Constance's husband. Remember what I said about women in white?" Mary says.

"Oh, jeez. So Sam is making sure he's right?" Jess asks.

"He don't need to, but yeah. The kid's a master at research," Bobby answers.

_"__It's a ghost story. Well, it's more of a phenomenon, really. Um, they're spirits. They've been sighted for hundreds of years, dozens of places, in Hawaii, Mexico, lately in Arizona, Indiana. All these are different women, you understand. But they all share the same story," Sam begins._

_"__Boy, I don't care much for nonsense," Joseph cuts him off, walking away. Sam follows._

_"__See, when they were alive, their husbands were unfaithful to them," Sam says, and Joseph stops walking. "And these, women, basically suffering from temporary insanity, murdered their children." Joseph turns around. "Then once they realized what they had done, they took their own lives. So now their spirits are cursed, walking back roads, waterways. And if they find an unfaithful man, they kill him. That man is never seen again," Sam finishes._

_"__You think…you think that has something to do with…Constance? You smartass!"_

_"__You tell me," Sam says._

_"__I mean, maybe…maybe I made some mistakes. But no matter what I did, Constance, she never would have killed her own children. Now, you get the hell out of here! And don't come back!" Joseph yells, face shaking from anger and grief. Sam sighs._

_"__I don't know how many times I have to tell you. It's my high school locker combo," Dean says, still being interrogated at the sheriff station._

_"__We gonna do this all night long?" Sheriff Pierce asks as a deputy leans into the room._

_"__We just got a 911, shots fired over at Whiteford Road," the deputy reports._

_"__You have to go to the bathroom?" The sheriff asks Dean, who says no. "Good." _

_The sheriff handcuffs Dean to the table and leaves. Dean finds a paperclip in John's journal, and uses it to get free, escaping down the fire escape with the journal. _

_Dean finds a phone booth and uses it to call Sam. "Fake 911 phone call, Sammy? I don't know, that's pretty illegal," Dean says._

_"__You're welcome," Sam says with a grin. _

_"__Listen, we gotta talk," Dean says._

_"__Tell me about it. So the husband was unfaithful. We are dealing with a woman in white. And she's buried behind her old house, so that should have been Dad's next stop," Sam says._

_"__Sammy, would you shut up for a second?" Dean interrupts._

_Sam keeps talking, "I just can't figure out why Dad hasn't destroyed the corpse yet."_

_"__Well, that's what I'm trying to tell you. He's gone. Dad left Jericho," Dean says._

_"__What? How do you know?" Sam asks._

_"__I've got his journal," Dean tells him._

"Oh man. What happened to you that you left your journal behind?" Mary asks John.

"I guess you'll just have to find out," he says, kissing her.

"What does she mean?" Jess whispers to Jo and Ellen.

"A hunter keeps a journal of all the things they hunt. They keep it with them at all times. If it is left behind, you know something's wrong," Ellen says.

"So, it's like a diary? For hunters?" Jessica asks.

"Yeah. I started one. My dad's helped me out a lot. He died when I was little. That's how I got into hunting. My dad was a hunter," Jo explained.

"I'm sorry," Jessica says, and Jo shrugs, but says it's not her fault. Jess smiles.

_"__He doesn't go anywhere without that thing," Sam says, shocked._

_"__Yeah, well, he did this time," Dean comments._

_"__What's it say?" Sam asks._

_"__Ah, the same old ex-Marine crap, when he wants to let us know where he's going."_

_"__Coordinates. Where to?" Sam understands._

_"__I'm not sure yet," Dean responds._

_"__I don't understand. I mean, what could be so important that Dad would just skip out in the middle of a job? Dean, what the hell is going on?" Sam says right before Constance appears in the middle of the road, causing Sam to hit the brakes and drop the phone._

_"__Sam? Sam!" Dean yells into the phone._

_Inside, Sam breathes hard. Constance is sitting in the backseat. "Take me home."_

_"__Take me home!" Constance orders again._

_"__No," Sam says. The doors lock and the car starts moving by itself, along with the steering wheel. Sam tries to get out, but fails. The car pulls up in front of Constance's house and stops. _

_"__Don't do this," Sam says._

_"__I can never go home," she says._

_"__You're scared to go home," Sam realizes._

_Constance pushes Sam back, reclining his seat. She climbs into his lap. "Hold me. I'm so cold."_

_"__You can't kill me. I'm not unfaithful. I've never been!" Sam struggles._

_"__You will be. Just hold me," Constance continues._

Jessica had begun to calm down when Sam said he had never been unfaithful. Then that bitch started kissing Sam. Mary grabbed her hand and comforted her again.

_Her nails had gone into Sam's shirt, causing Sam to scream and pull back his hoodie, revealing four claw marks, starting to bleed, on Sam's chest. _

"Sam!" Jessica yells.

_Dean starts shooting the car full of bullets, and Constance flickers, claws returning. _

_"__I'm taking you home," Sam says and drives the car through the house. Dean hurries into the wreckage, opening the passenger door._

_"__Sam! Sam! You okay?" Dean asks._

_"__I think…" he answers._

_"__Can you move?" Dean asks._

_"__Yeah. Help me?" Sam says, extending a hand._

_Constance pins them against the car then with a dresser, and starts walking towards them when water starts running down the stairs._

_At the top of the stairs, her children are standing hand in hand. "You've come home to us, Mommy."_

_Suddenly they are behind her, and they hug her, and she screams and soon they melt into a puddle on the floor. Sam and Dean shove the dresser off to go look._

_"__So this is where she drowned her kids," Dean figures out._

_"__That's why she could never go home. She was too scared to face them," Sam says._

_"__You found her weak spot. Nice work, Sammy," Dean says, slapping Sam where he is injured, Sam just laughing through the pain._

_"__Yeah, I wish I could say the same for you. What were you thinking shooting Casper in the face, you freak?" Sam jokes. _

_"__Hey. Saved your ass. I'll tell you another thing. If you screwed up my car? I'll kill you," Dean says._

_"__Okay, here's where Dad went," Sam says, looking at a map back in the Impala. "It's called Blackwater Ridge, Colorado."_

_"__Sounds charming. How far?" Dean asks._

_"__About six hundred miles," Sam answers._

_"__Hey, if we shag ass we could make it by morning," Dean says, hopeful._

_"__Dean, I, um…" Sam begins._

_"__You're not going," Dean realizes._

_"__The interview's in like, ten hours, I gotta be there," Sam explains._

_Dean nods, disappointed, and returns his attention to the road. "Yeah. Yeah, whatever. I'll take you home."_

_They pull up in front of the apartment. Sam gets out and leans over to look through the window. "Call me if you find him?" Dean nods. "And maybe I can meet up with you later, huh?"_

_"__Yeah, all right," Dean agrees._

_Sam pats the car door twice and turns away. "Sam? You know, we made a hell of a team back there."_

_"__Yeah." Dean drives off. Sam watches him go with a sigh._

_Sam lets himself in. Everything is dark and quiet. "Jess? You home?"_

_Sam sees a plate of chocolate chips and smiles. He takes one and eats it, lying down on the bed. A drop lands on his forehead. He doesn't open his eyes. Another drop lands. When he opens his eyes, he's met with Jessica on the ceiling, stomach cut. She bursts into flames. _

_"__No!" Sam yells._

_Dean kicks the door down. "Sam!" _

_Sam raises one arm to shield his face. "Jess!" _

_Dean comes running into the bedroom. "Sam! Sam!" Dean looks up and sees Jess. _

_"__No! No!" __Sam yells. Dean grabs Sam off the bed and shoves him out the door, Sam struggling all the way. "Jess! Jess! No!" Flames engulf the apartment._

_A fire truck is parked outside, police officers moving gawkers out of the way. Dean looks on, then turns around and walks away. He joins Sam at the trunk, who is loading a shotgun. Dean looks at Sam's face, which is set in a mask of desperate anger. _

_"__We got work to do," Sam says, shutting the trunk._

By the time the video ended, Jessica was sobbing into Mary, who also had tears running down her face. Charlie had run to the bathroom, followed by Jo, who calmed her down, and John was sitting silently, his face in his hands. Jessica calmed down eventually and excused herself. She needed to find Sam. She tried all the doors. Finally, she knocked on his door. It opened slightly, so she let herself in.

She was met with Sam passed out on the bed, a bottle of whiskey on the table next to him. She went to sit down and that was when she noticed the empty needle next to the whiskey. She freaked out, trying to wake him. He startled awake. "What the fuck, Dean?"

"Sam?" Jessica's voice was quiet. Sam's face softened, just barely.

"Jessica?" He asked in confusion until the day's events returned to him.

"Sam, what is going on?" She asked him.

"I'm sorry. This is all just a bit much," he said with a smile that didn't come close to reaching his eyes. "Come on. Join me. God, I missed you so much, Jess."

She smiled and lied down next to him. He wrapped his arms around her and they fell asleep with so many unanswered questions between them.


	3. Wendigo

**Wendigo**

**Blackwater Ridge**

**Lost Creek, Colorado**

_Two tents are set up near a fire ring. Crickets chirp. Inside one tent, two young men, Brad and Gary, are playing head-to-head handheld video games._

_"__Dude, you're cheating," Brad says._

_"__No, you just suck," Gary responds._

_Something growls outside. In the other tent, a third young man, Tommy Collins, records a video message on his cell phone._

_"__Hey, Haley, day six, we're still out near Blackwater Ridge. We're fine, keeping safe, so don't worry, okay? Talk to you tomorrow," Tommy records, a dark shadow flicking past the tent._

Jessica's hand tightens around Sam's. She had spent the better part of the morning trying to convince Sam to watch with them today. She had succeeded. Sam agreed reluctantly, and although Jessica hadn't been able to stop his bad habits, it had been a week wince she got back and they had spent the week catching up. On everything the video wouldn't cover, that is. He explained the fact that he has been through a lot and that he might need some time to process. From what she could tell, Dean had been the only constant thing in his life for a while, except for Castiel, who made a brief appearance, effectively scaring the shit out of every house guest in the bunker, motivating John, Mary, and Ellen to raise their guns to him, and even fire off a few ineffective shots before Sam and Dean were able to talk them down with the help of Bobby, who apparently had the pleasure of meeting 'Cas' as they called him before his untimely demise.

He had been looking for Sam. Dean had prayed to him, oddly enough, asking for help with getting Sam clean. Instead he came with news that actually made Jess laugh out loud, before seeing the look of pure horror on Sam's face. Lucifer, the actual Devil, had escaped his 'Cage.' Sam hadn't taken too kindly to this news and had swerved away in his truck, a bottle of bourbon in hand. He came home hours later, apologizing. He had gone straight to bed. Which is what led Jessica to convince him to join them when they finally got around to another episode. The first one had shaken everybody up a bit. He flashed her a quick smile and returned the hand squeeze, comforting her. He had promised to watch the episodes that weren't too intense, whatever that means. He said some would be too hard, like the first would have been, but he would try. That's all I could ask for, so I took it. I smiled back and cuddled into his side. The video continued.

_Brad closes his game system and tosses it aside. Gary stares at his system for a moment, then turns to look at Brad, who is getting up and unzipping the tent. "Hey, where ya going? My moment of victory," he complains._

_"__Nature calls," Brad responds. He begins relieving himself when he hears a twig snap._

_Inside Tommy's tent, he is reading a comic when he hears Brad scream. He sits up. "Gary, what's going on?"_

_Gary peeks his head out and gets pulled away, screaming. Tommy turns off the lantern. Shadows move quickly around his tent before it is slashed open, and Tommy screams. _

Before the screen even had a chance to play the next scene, Sam knew what it was and unconsciously squeezed Jess's hand. She squeezed back and planted a quick kiss on his cheek.

_Sam was walking through a graveyard, carrying a bouquet of flowers. He stops at Jessica's gravestone. "I, uh…" Sam begins. He laughs. "You always said roses were lame, so I brought you, uh…" Sam looks at her picture and chokes back tears before moving closer._

_"__Jess…oh god…" Sam sobs, kneeling down to set the flowers on the gravestone. "I should have protected you. I should have told you the truth." A hand shoots out and grabs Sam by the wrist._

As the video played, Sam looked away and hid Jessica's face in his chest as she cried. He picked her up and led her out of the room, calming her down. Dean, who was sitting next to Sam, had got up to follow before Mary asked him a question that he was so desperately trying to avoid. The only reason he was even here, watching was because if Sam was, he wasn't going to make him do it alone.

"Dean? Sam, is he, uh. Is he doing okay?" She asks, piquing everyone's interest. Everyone had noticed but no one had built up the courage to ask, seeing Dean's level of overprotectiveness had increased greatly.

"Yeah, he's, he's working through it pretty well. It hasn't been easy for him, lately, then with all this," Dean explains.

"Does this have anything to do with the news your, uh, angel friend brought?" John asks.

"Yeah, yes it does. But that's Sam's story to tell, not mine. But you're most likely going to see all about it soon, so, just give it some time," Dean tells them, just as Sam and Jessica return.

_Sam jerks awake. He blinks and rubs his eyes. Dean looks over, concerned. "You okay?"_

_Sam glances over then away again. "Yeah, I'm fine."_

_Dean nods. "Another nightmare?"_

_Sam clears his throat, ending the conversation. "You wanna drive for a while?" Dean asks._

_Sam laughs. "Dean, your whole life you never once asked me that."_

_"__Just thought you might want to. Never mind," Dean says._

_"__Look, man, you're worried about me. I get it and thank you, but I'm perfectly okay," Sam insists._

_"__Mm-hm," Dean responds, and Sam grabs a map. "All right, where are we?"_

_"__We are just outside of Grand Junction," Dean answers._

_Sam folds down the map of Colorado, and says, "You know what? Maybe we shouldn't have left Stanford so soon."_

_"__Sam, we dug around there for a week. We came up with nothing. If you wanna find the thing that killed Jessica…"_

_"__We gotta find Dad first," Sam finishes._

_"__Dad disappearing, and this thing showing up again after twenty years, it's no coincidence. Dad will have answers. He'll know what to do," Dean says. _

_"__It's weird, man. These coordinates he left us. This Blackwater Ridge," Sam says._

_"__What about it?" Dean asks._

_"__There's nothing there. It's just woods. Why is he sending us to the middle of nowhere?" Sam asks, confused._

_They drive past the National Forest sign and soon pull up to the Ranger Station. _

_"__So, Blackwater Ridge is pretty remote. It's cut off by these canyons here, rough terrain, dense forest, abandoned silver and gold mines all over the place," Sam says, interrupted by Dean._

_"__Dude, check out the size of this freaking bear," Dean interrupts._

_"__And a dozen or more grizzlies in the area," Sam finishes._

_Ranger Wilkinson walks in, "You boys aren't planning on going out near Blackwater Ridge by any chance?"_

_"__Oh, no, sir, we're environmental study majors from UC Boulder, we were just working on a paper," Sam lies expertly, laughing a little._

_Dean grins and raises a fist, "Recycle, man."_

_"__Bull," Ranger Wilkinson says. "You're friends with that Haley girl, right?" _

_Dean considers, saying, "Yes. Yes, we are, Ranger—Wilkinson," Dean says._

_"__Well I will tell you exactly what we told her. Her brother filled out a backcountry permit saying he wouldn't be back from Blackwater until the twenty-fourth, so it's not exactly a missing persons now, is it?" The ranger says, and Dean shakes his head. "You tell that girl to quit worrying, I'm sure her brother's just fine."_

_"__We will. Well that Haley girl's quite a pistol, huh?" Dean jokes._

_"__That is putting it mildly," the ranger responds._

_"__Actually you know what would help is if I could show her a copy of that backcountry permit. You know, so she could see her brother's return date," Dean asks, and the ranger eyes him._

_Dean and Sam leave the ranger station, Dean laughing with the permit in his hand. _

_"__What, are you cruising for a hookup or something?" Sam says irritated._

_"__What do you mean?" Dean asks, confused._

_"__The coordinates point to Blackwater Ridge, so what are we waiting for? Let's just go find Dad. I mean, why even talk to this girl?" Sam says, standing opposite the Impala from Dean._

_"__I don't know, maybe we should know what we're walking into before we actually walk into it?" Dean offers. They pause before Sam speaks up. "What?"_

_"__Since when are you all shoot first ask questions later, anyway?" _

_"__Since now," Sam answers, getting into the car._

As it plays, Dean and John both keep glancing over at Sam with worried looks. It annoys the hell out of Jess, until she realizes why. Sam was acting like that after she died. He's acting the same way now, except to a much bigger extent. He had flat out refused to grow a beard when they were together, no matter how much she told him it would look cute. Another thing, he used to wear black as little as possible. Now, nothing he wore wasn't black. He drank and smoke on a regular basis, and as much as he tried to hide it from everyone, they all knew he used drugs. She walked in on him shooting up just yesterday. The thought hit her hard. Sam was losing his grip. She snuggled up to his chest and held his hand in comfort, and in return, he stroked his hand through her hair.

I would never admit it but I was scared. Not of watching it, but of Sam watching it. I remembered Sam's erratic behavior, the sleepless nights, and the horrible nightmares. They haunted him for months. I couldn't help my glances over at him every few seconds. I noticed our Dad doing it, too. He knew Sam after Jess as well. And I could tell he was worried. But I could also tell it was pissing Jessica off, if the way she was squirming around on Sam gave any clue. So I did my best to stop, especially after Sam told me to knock it off and shot me a glare.

He saw Dean's worried glances, sparking his. John remembered the Sam he met before his death. The one driven by revenge and anger towards the thing that killed the love of his life. He could relate. He understood. Completely. Sam was right. They weren't different anymore. They were the same. They both wanted that bastard dead for what he did to their family. He just hoped that this didn't make Sam down spiral any more than he already had.

_"__Really?" Dean says, getting in the driver's side and driving away. They soon arrive at the Collins household. They knock, and the door opens, revealing Haley Collins. _

_"__You must be Haley Collins. I'm Dean, this is Sam, we're, ah, we're rangers with the Park Service. Ranger Wilkinson sent us over. He wanted us to ask a few questions about your brother, Tommy," Dean explains. Haley hesitates._

_"__Lemme see some ID," she demands. Dean pulls out a fake ID and holds it up. She studies it for a second, receiving a grin from Dean. "Come on in." _

_"__Thanks," Dean says. As Dean shifts, Haley sees the Impala and comments. _

_"__That yours?" She asks._

_"__Yeah," Dean says._

_"__Nice car," she says, turning to the kitchen. Dean turns and mouth something to Sam, impressed, and Sam just rolls his eyes._

_"__So if Tommy's not due back for a while, how do you know something's wrong?" Sam asks, as Haley comes back in with dinner._

_"__He checks in every day by cell. He emails, photos, stupid little videos—we haven't heard anything in over three days now," Haley responds looking worried._

_"__Well, maybe he can't get cell reception," Sam says._

_"__He's got a satellite phone, too," she tells him. _

_"__Could it be he's just having fun and forgot to check-in?" Dean asks._

_"__He wouldn't do that," Tommy's younger brother, Ben, says from the table. He looks away._

_"__Our parents are gone. It's just my two brothers and me. We all keep pretty close tabs on each other," Haley explains._

_"__Can I see the pictures he sent you?" Sam asks._

_"__Yeah," Haley says as she pulls up the pictures on her laptop. "That's Tommy." Haley shows him, starting a video. The video from before plays and Sam notices a shadow flicking past._

_"__Well, we'll find your brother," Dean reassures them, "We're heading out to Blackwater Ridge first thing."_

_"__Then maybe I'll see you there. Look, I can't sit around here anymore. So I hired a guide. I'm heading out in the morning, and I'm gonna find Tommy myself," Haley says._

_"__I think I know how you feel," Dean says._

_"__Hey, do you mind forwarding these to me?" Sam asks._

_"__Sure," Haley says._

"Wait, so what is it? I mean, Sam obviously saw something," Charlie asks.

"You'll find out soon enough," Sam smiles. He gets up to hand out beers.

"Sam. I'm sorry, you know, for everything. I don't think I ever really apologized," John says.

"It's okay, Dad. Really. But let me tell you, that hunt was not a fun one," Sam jokes, clapping John on the shoulder.

_At the bar, Sam and Dean sit down at a table. "So, Blackwater Ridge doesn't get a lot of traffic. Local campers, mostly. But still, this past April, two hikers went missing out there. They were never found," Sam shows Dean._

_"__Any before that?" Dean asks as Sam pulls out his newspaper articles._

_"__Yeah, in 1982, eight different people all vanished in the same year. Authorities said it was a grizzly attack," Sam explains, "And again in 1959 and before that in 1936. Every twenty-three years, like clockwork. Okay. Watch this. Here's a clincher. I downloaded that guy Tommy's video to the laptop. Check this out." Sam plays the video, stopping on the shadow he saw earlier, through three frames. Dean asks him to play it again._

_'__That's three frames. That's a fraction of a second. Whatever that thing is, it can move," Sam says, and Dean hits Sam._

_"__Told you something weird was going on," Dean says._

_"__Yeah. I got one more thing. In 'fifty-nine one camper survived this supposed grizzly attack. Just a kid. Barely crawled out of the woods alive," Sam tells him._

_"__Is there a name?" Dean asks._

_The brothers arrive at the Shaw house, the lone survivor of the attack. _

_"__Look, ranger, I don't know why you're asking me about this. It's public record. I was a kid. My parents got mauled by a—" Mr. Shaw began._

_"—__Grizzly? That's what attacked them?" Sam questions._

_Shaw pulls out his cigarette and hesitates, but nods._

_"__The other people that went missing that year, those bear attacks too?" Dean asks, then pauses. "What about all the people that went missing this year? Same thing?" He pauses again. "We knew what we were dealing with, we might be able to stop it."_

_"__I seriously doubt that. Anyways, I don't see what difference it would make. You wouldn't believe me. Nobody ever did," Mr. Shaw says, sitting down._

_"__Mr. Shaw, what did you see?" Sam asks, sitting down across from him. Shaw pauses._

_"__Nothing. It moved too fast to see. It hid too well. I heard it, though. A roar. Like…no man or animal I ever heard," he begins._

_"__It came at night?" Sam asks. Shaw nods. "Got inside your tent?"_

_"__It got inside our cabin. I was sleeping in front of the fireplace when it came in. It didn't smash a window or break the door. It unlocked it. Do you know of a bear that could do something like that? I didn't even wake up till I heard my parents screaming," Mr. Shaw explains._

_"__It killed them?" Sam asks._

_"__Dragged them off into the night," Shaw says, shaking his head. "Why it left me alive…been asking myself that ever since. Did leave me this, though," Shaw continues, reaching for his shirt and pulling it down, revealing three long scars running down his shoulder and chest. "There's something evil in those woods. It was some sort of demon."_

When the scar was shown, Charlie and Jessica turned away, burying their faces in Dean and Sam's shirts. They didn't move, but Jo managed to ask the question that was on both their minds.

"Why did it leave him alive? I mean, not many creatures would stop in its tracks and let a kid live, however brutal that is."

"You'll find this out pretty soon, but this specific creature is a wendigo. They were humans at some point, and they were eventually forced to turn to cannibalism at some point during some harsh winter, turning him into a monster. Some part of the human inside him, must have surfaced and as horrible as eating the parents are, his human counterpart likely held him back, sparing the kid," Sam explained.

"That's kind of sad. I feel bad for him," Jess mumbles, picking up her head. Sam gives a short laugh.

"Jess, this thing, it may have been human, but it's not anymore. You'll see it. It needs to be put to rest, for once and for all," Sam tells her, returning to the video, as Mary studies him and smiles, admiring her son.

_"__Spirits and demons don't have to unlock doors. If they want inside, they just go through the walls," Dean says._

_"__So it's probably something else, something corporeal," Sam suggests._

_"__Corporeal? Excuse me, professor," Dean jokes._

_"__Shut up. So what do you think?" Sam asks._

_"__The claws, the speed that it moves…could be a skinwalker, maybe a black dog. Whatever we're talking about, we're talking about a creature, and it's corporeal. Which means we can kill it," Dean answers._

_Outside, Dean opens the trunk of the Impala, the weapons box, and loads up a bag with some shotguns. _

_"__We cannot let that Haley girl go out there," Sam says._

_"__Oh yeah? What are we gonna tell her? That she can't go into the woods because of a big scary monster?" Dean says. _

"Yes," Jessica answers, making Sam burst into laughter. "What?"

'That's exactly what I said, and, well, let's just say Dean was not happy," Sam says through laughs, which made Jo snort and join in laughing with him.

"That's not true! I was just looking out for her," Dean defends himself.

"Okay, whatever. But I mean, it's not like she would have believed it anyway," Sam says.

"She did after we told her, to be fair," Dean remembers.

"Yeah, I guess so. But we try and tell as little people as possible, we don't want the whole world knowing what's really out there. There are hunters for a reason," Sam explains.

"Yup," Dean agrees. Mary watched the whole thing in amusement, seeing her boys argue for about a minute before resigning and making peace with each other.

"This is their thing," John explains, hugging her close. "When they were younger they used to do it all the time, over everything. It drove me insane sometimes. I never stayed mad for long, though. It was the cutest thing ever," he said, laughing. She kissed him, then turned her attention back to the screen as the video resumed.

_"__Yeah," Sam says. Dean just looks at him._

_"__Her brother's missing, Sam. She's not gonna just sit this out. Now we go with her, we protect her, and we keep our eyes peeled for our fuzzy predator friend," Dean declares, picking up the duffel._

_"__Finding Dad's not enough?" Sam says, slamming the trunk. "Now we gotta babysit too?"_

_Dean stares at him. "What?" Sam asks._

_"__Nothing," Dean says, throwing the duffel bag at Sam and walking off._

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

_Haley and Ben are talking to their guide, Roy, who is loading shotgun, as the Impala pulls up. _

_"__You got room for two more?" Dean asks, getting out._

_"__Wait, you want to come with us?" Haley asks._

_"__Who are these guys?" Roy asks._

_"__Apparently this is all the park service could muster up for the search and rescue," Haley jokes as Sam heads past everyone._

_"__You're rangers?" Roy asks, incredulous._

_"__That's right," Dean says._

_"__And you're hiking out in biker boots and jeans?" Haley points out. Dean looks down._

_"Oh__, sweetheart, I don't do shorts," Dean jokes, heading past Haley._

_"__What, you think this is funny? It's dangerous backcountry out there. Her brother might be hurt," Roy says. Sam turns back._

_"__Believe me, I know how dangerous it can be. We just wanna help them find their brother, that's all," Dean says. _

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

_In the mine, Tom and Gary are hanging by their wrists. There are corpses and bones everywhere. Gary sees the creature, and starts yelling. Tommy turns away and closes his eyes tightly as his Gary screams._

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

_Roy is leading the group through the woods, Sam bringing up the rear as Dean attempts to make conversation with Roy._

_"__Roy, you said you did a little hunting," Dean starts._

_"__Yeah, more than a little," Roy responds._

_"__Uh-huh. What kind of furry critters do you hunt?" Dean asks._

_"__Mostly buck, sometimes bear," Roy answers, passing Dean. _

_"__Tell me, uh, Bambi or Yogi ever hunt you back?" Dean asks as Roy grabs Dean. "Whatcha doing, Roy?"_

_Roy grabs a stick and pokes the bear trap Dean almost stepped in. Haley looks annoyed. _

_"__You should watch where you're stepping. Ranger," Roy says, moving on._

_"__It's a bear trap," Dean say as Haley catches up to him and grabs his arm, Sam and Ben passing them._

_"__You didn't pack any provisions. You guys are carrying a duffel bag. You're not rangers. So who the hell are you?" Haley demands to know. _

_"__Sam and I are brothers, and we're looking for our father. He might be here, we don't know. I just figured that you and me, we're in the same boat," Dean explains._

_"__Why didn't you just tell me that from the start?" She asks, calming down._

_"__I'm telling you now. Besides, it's probably the most honest I've been with a woman…ever. So we okay?" Dean says. Haley pauses._

_"__Yeah, okay," she says._

_"__And what do you mean I didn't pack provisions?" Dean says, pulling out a big bag of peanut M&M's. Haley laughs and follows behind him._

_Roy leads the group into a clearing, "This is it. Blackwater Ridge."_

_"__What coordinates are we at?" Sam asks._

_""__Thirty-five and minus one-eleven," Roy answers._

_Dean comes up to Sam. "You hear that?"_

_"__Yeah. Not even crickets," Sam agrees._

_"__I'm gonna go take a look around," Roy says._

_"__You shouldn't go off by yourself," Sam says._

_"__That's sweet. Don't worry about me," Roy responds._

_Roy turns around and heads off. _

_"__All right, everybody stays together. Let's go," Dean says, following Roy._

_"__Haley! Over here! Roy yells. Haley runs towards Roy, followed by Sam, Dean, and Ben, and they see that all the tents are torn apart and bloody. _

_"__Oh my god," Haley whispers._

_"__Looks like a grizzly," Roy says._

_"__Tommy? Tommy!" Haley calls out, walking away to look for him. Sam follows her and tells her to be quiet. "Shh-hh!"_

_"__Why?" She asks._

_"__Something might still be out there," Sam says._

_"__Sam!" Dean calls._

_Sam goes over to Dean, crouching down next to him. _

_"__The bodies were dragged from the campsite. But here, the tracks just vanish. That's weird. I'll tell you what, that's no skinwalker or black dog," Dean says._

"Wait, so, did you kill the thing?" Jessica asks, looking up at Sam.

"Of course we killed the sucker! He ain't in those woods no longer!" Dean spoke up.

Jessica looks up at Sam and he smiles down at her and nods.

_"__Hey, he could still be alive," Dean tells Haley, who is looking at Tom's broken cellphone._

_"__Help! Help!" A voice screams._

_Roy leads everyone away from camp, towards the voice._

_"__Help! Somebody!" The voice screams again._

_"__It seemed like it was coming from around here, didn't it?" Haley asks when they find nothing._

_"__Everybody back to camp," Sam says, still finding nothing._

_"__Our packs!" Haley says, when they find all their supplies missing._

_"__So much for my GPS and satellite phone," Roy says._

_"__What the hell is going on?" Haley asks._

_"__It's smart. It wants to cut us off so we can't call for help," Sam says._

_"__You mean, someone, some nutjob out there just stole all our gear," Roy corrects._

_Sam walks over and whispers to Dean, "I need to talk to you. In private."_

_"__Good. Let me see Dad's journal," Sam says when they are far enough away. "All right, check that out."_

_"__Oh, come on, wendigos are in the Minnesota woods, or northern Michigan. I've never even heard of one this far west," Dean says._

_"__Think about it, Dean. The claws, the way it can mimic a human voice," Sam says._

_"__Great. Well then, this is useless," Dean says, pulling out his gun._

_Sam gives the journal back to Dean. "We gotta get these people to safety."_

_Back at the campsite, Sam addresses everyone, "All right, listen up. It's time to go. Things have gotten… more complicated."_

_"__What?" Haley asks._

_"__Kid, don't worry. Whatever's out there, I think I can handle it," Roy laughs._

_"__It's not me I'm worried about. If you shoot this thing, you're just gonna make it mad. We have to leave. Now," Sam demanded, making Roy angry._

"You were so different when you were… hunting," Jessica says, asking Sam for answers.

"Yeah. Jess, I know you're probably wondering. You know, about us. It was real. It was. I had to put all of this behind me. I did it for you. For us," Sam said, kissing the top of her head, and she smiled up at him.

They all turn their attention back to the screen as it started playing again.

_"__One, you're talking nonsense. Two, you're in no position to give anybody orders," Roy says._

_"__Relax," Dean says, trying to calm them down._

_"__We never should have let you come out here in the first place, all right? I'm trying to protect you," Sam keeps going._

_Roy gets in Sam's face and says, "You protect me? I was hunting these woods when your mommy was still kissing you goodnight," Roy snarls._

Everyone gasps at that comment. Then they turn to look at Sam and Dean, who just look amused at their reactions.

"That little piece of shit," Mary growls, causing everybody to turn their heads and look at her.

"Mom, calm down, okay," Dean says, laughing a little.

"Sorry, he just has no right to say that," Mary responds.

"Yeah, well, he didn't know. He wasn't actually such a bad guy. And his death wasn't so pleasant. You'll see," Dean tells them.

_"__Yeah? It's a damn near perfect hunter. It's smarter than you, and it's gonna hunt you down and eat you alive unless we get your stupid sorry ass out of here," Sam laughs._

_Roy laughs, "You know you're crazy, right?"_

_"__Yeah? You ever hunt a wen—" Sam started, getting cut off by Dean pushing him._

_"__Roy!" Haley interrupts._

_"__Chill out," Dean says._

_"__Stop. Stop it. Everybody just stop. Look. Tommy might still be alive. And I'm not leaving here without him," Haley says to the group._

"Man, that girl's got guts," Charlie says.

Sam and Dean both laugh.

_"__It's getting late. This thing is a good hunter in the day, but an unbelievable hunter at night. We'll never beat it, not in the dark. We need to settle in and protect ourselves," Dean says._

_"__How?" Haley asks._

_The scene moves to a campfire. Dean is drawing symbols in the dirt._

_"__One more time, that's—" she begins._

_"__Anasazi symbols. It's for protection. The wendigo can't cross over them," Dean says and Roy laughs, slinging the gun over his shoulder. "Nobody likes a skeptic, Roy."_

_Dean joins Sam next to the fire._

_"__You wanna tell me what's going on in that freaky head of yours?" Dean asks._

_"__Dean—" Sam tries._

_"__No, you're not fine. You're like a powder keg, man, it's not like you. I'm supposed to be the belligerent one, remember?" Dean interrupts. Sam pauses._

_"__Dad's not here. I mean, that much we know for sure, right? He would have left us a message, a sign, right?" Sam changes the subject._

_"__Yeah, you're probably right. Tell you the truth, I don't think Dad's ever been to Lost Creek," Dean says and Sam looks up at him._

_"__Then let's get these people back to town and let's hit the road. Go find Dad. I mean, why are we still even here?" Sam says, throwing a stick into the fire. _

_"__This is why," Dean says, holding up John's journal. "This book. This is Dad's single most valuable possession—everything he knows about every evil thing is in here. And he's passed it on to us. I think he wants us to pick up where he left off. You know, saving people, hunting things. The family business."_

_Sam shakes his head, "That makes no sense. Why doesn't he just—call us? Why doesn't he—tell us what he wants, tell us where he is?"_

_"__I dunno. But the way I see it, Dad's giving us a job to do, and I intend to do it," Dean says to Sam._

_"__Dean… no. I gotta find Dad. I gotta find Jessica's killer. It's the only thing I can think about," Sam protests._

_"__Okay, all right, Sam, we'll find them, I promise. Listen to me. You've gotta prepare yourself. I mean, this search could take a while, and all that anger, you can't keep it burning over the long haul. It's gonna kill you. You gotta have patience, man," Dean tells him._

"Aww, you boys are so adorable," Mary says and John laughs.

"It actually use to scare me how close they were as kids. They literally did everything together," John laughs, and Mary joins in.

"Guys, seriously," Sam and Dean complained at the same time, both throwing their heads back.

Jo laughs, "I'm telling you, I love it when they talk at the same time."

Everyone laughed at that.

_"__How do you do it? How does Dad do it?" Sam asks._

_"__Well for one, them," Dean says, looking over at Haley and Ben, curled up together by the fire. "I mean, I figure our family's so screwed to hell, maybe we can help some others. Makes things a little bit more bearable. I'll tell you what else helps. Killing as many evil sons of bitches as I possibly can."_

_Sam smiles, then somebody starts screaming for help._

_"__He's trying to draw us out. Just stay cool, stay put," Dean tells the group._

_"__Inside the magic circle?" Roy asks sarcastically. The wendigo growls. "Okay, that's no grizzly."_

_"__It's okay. You'll be alright, I promise," Haley tells Ben. Something moves past them._

_"__It's here," Sam says, and Roy shoots at it. It howls._

_"__I hit it!" Roy yells, running outside the circle._

_"__Roy, no! Roy!" Dean yells, taking off after him._

"That idiot," John mutters under his breath.

_Sam, Haley, and Ben chase after them._

_"__It's over here! It's in the tree!" Roy yells before the wendigo reaches down and snaps his neck._

"Oh my god!" Jessica and Charlie say at the same time, Jess burying her head into Sam's chest and Charlie into Dean's.

_The scene changes and shows them all in the circle, Sam sitting against a tree stump._

_"__I don't… I mean, these types of things, they aren't supposed to be real," Haley says._

_"__I wish I could tell you differently," Dean tells her._

_"__How do we know it's not out there watching us?" Haley asks._

_"__We don't. But we're safe for now," Dean reassures her as best he can._

_"__How do you know about this stuff?" Haley asks. Dean looks down, trying to hide his emotions._

_"__Kind of runs in the family," he says._

_"__Hey," Sam says, standing up. "So we've got half a chance in the daylight. And I for one, want to kill this evil son of a bitch."_

_"__Well, hell, you know I'm in," Dean says, smiling at the change in Sam's attitude._

"Well, it looks like Dean's little pep talk helped you out," Jess says, laughing.

"Oh, shush," Sam says, trying not to laugh also.

Everybody's attention is turned back to the screen as they hear Sam's voice again.

_"__Wendigo is a Cree Indian word. It means 'evil that devours'," Sam begins._

_"__They're hundreds of years old. Each one was once a man. Sometimes an Indian, or other times a frontiersman or a miner or hunter," Dean says._

_"__How does a man turn into one of those things?" Haley asks, incredulous._

_"__Well, it's always the same. During some harsh winter, a guy finds himself starving, cut off from supplies or help. He becomes a cannibal to survive, eating other members of his tribe or camp," Dean responds._

_"__Like the Donner Party," Ben says and Sam nods._

_"__Cultures all over the world believe that eating human flesh gives a person certain abilities. Speed, strength, immortality," Sam tells them._

_"__If you eat enough of it, over the years, you become this less than human thing. You're always hungry," Dean finishes._

_"__So if that's true, how can Tommy still be alive?" Haley wonders._

_"__You're not gonna like it," Dean says, sharing a look with Sam._

_"__Tell me," Haley says._

_"__More than anything, a wendigo knows how to last long winters without food. It hibernates for years at a time, but when it's awake it keeps its victims alive. It, uh, it stores them, so it can feed whenever it wants. If your brother's alive, it's keeping him somewhere dark, hidden, and safe. We gotta track it back there," Dean tells them._

"That's disgusting," Charlie says and Jessica nods.

"Yeah, but luckily, we got the son of a bitch," Dean says, smiling and Sam rolls his eyes.

"How?" Jo asks.

Sam points to the screen.

_"__And then how do we stop it?" Haley asks._

_"__Well, guns are useless, so are knives. Basically—" Dean holds up a bottle of alcohol and a lighter. "We gotta torch the sucker."_

_As Dean leads the way through the woods, Sam notices fresh blood and claw marks on the trees._

_"__You know, I was thinking, those claw prints, so clear and distinct. They were almost too easy to follow," Sam says, and suddenly blood starts dripping onto Haley's jacket._

_She looks up and screams. Roy falls out of the trees._

_"__You okay? You got it?" Sam says to Dean as he helps Haley up._

_"__Yeah, his neck's broke," Dean answers. The growling continues._

_"__Okay, run, run, run, run, go, go, go!" Dean yells and they all take off._

_Ben trips and Sam goes back to help him up, and they hear Haley scream. By the time they catch up, they are gone and Sam finds the broken beer bottle._

_"__Haley?" Ben says._

_"__Dean!" Sam yells._

"Oh my god, what happened to you?" Mary exclaims.

"You'll see. Don't worry, I was fine," Dean says.

"Yeah, because I saved your ass," Sam responds.

"Oh, whatever," Dean laughs.

_"__If it keeps its victims alive, why would it kill Roy?" Ben asks Sam as they walk through the forest to try and find the wendigo's cave._

_"__Honestly? I think because Roy shot at it, pissed it off," Sam tells him._

_Then Ben finds a trail of M&Ms. _

_"__They went this way," Ben tells Sam. Sam walks up to him and smiles._

_"__Better than bread crumbs," he says and Ben smiles back at him._

_They finally reach a mine entrance that says 'KEEP OUT.'_

_As they walk through it, they eventually reach some creaky floorboards and end up falling through them. They find Dean and Haley strung up by their wrists. They rush over to them and cut them down, Dean groaning slightly from the strain on his shoulders._

"Oh my god," Mary says, and glares at John.

"What did I do?" He says, confused.

"Well, he wouldn't have been in that situation if you hadn't gone crazy over hunting," Mary responds and John rolls his eyes.

"Okay, well, it was worth it, you'll see," John says and Mary smiles up at him.

"Really? You got the son of a bitch?" She asks him.

"Yup. Well, technically, Dean was the one who shot the bastard in the head, but yeah, we got it," John smiles, and Mary kisses him.

"Okay, guys, kids in the room," Dean says and everyone laughs before paying attention to the screen again.

_Then they notice Tommy hanging also a few feet away. Haley walks over to him and starts crying, thinking he's dead. However, when she touches his face, he jerks awake and she startles, telling Sam to cut him down. _

_"__Check it out," Dean says from the corner. Sam smiles._

_"__Flare guns. Those'll work," Sam says._

_As they walk out of the cave, they hear more growling. _

_"__Looks like someone's home for supper," Dean says._

_"__We'll never outrun it," Haley points out._

_Dean looks at Sam. "You thinking what I'm thinking?"_

_"__Yeah, I think so," Sam responds._

_"__Alright, listen to me. Stay with Sam. He's gonna get you out of here," Sam tells the rest of them._

_"__What are you gonna do?" Haley asks him. Dean just winks and walks away, gun raised._

_"__Chow time, you freaky bastard! Yeah, that's right, bring it on, baby. I taste good!" Dean yelled as he disappeared behind a wall._

_"__All right, come on, hurry!" Sam says after Dean is gone._

_As Sam leads Haley, Ben, and Tommy down the tunnel, they hear growling. _

_"__Get him outta here," Sam says to Haley._

_"__Sam, no," Haley protests._

_"__Go!" Sam tells her before running off._

_"__Come on, Haley!" Ben pulls her along._

_Sam hides behind some rocks, but the Wendigo appears next to him. Sam shoots and runs. _

_Haley turns around and yells, "Sam!"_

_"__Come on, hurry, hurry!" Sam says, running towards them._

_They reach a dead end, and Sam gets in front of them as the wendigo approaches._

_Dean comes up behind the wendigo and shoots it with the flare gun, and it goes up in flames. _

_"__Not bad, huh?" Dean says and Sam just laughs._

_Afterward, Tommy is in an ambulance, and Sam and Ben are talking to the rangers._

_"__And the bear came back again after you yelled at it?" The officer asks. Ben nods._

_"__That's when it circled the campsite. I mean, this grizzly must have weighed eight hundred, nine hundred pounds," Ben says and Sam nods._

_"__Alright, we'll go after it first thing," the officer tells them. _

_Meanwhile, Haley was talking to Dean. "So I don't know how to thank you."_

_Dean grins. Haley smiles back, "Must you cheapen the moment?"_

_"__Yeah," Dean jokes._

_A paramedic comes and asks Haley if she's going to ride with her brother. She says yes. Haley and Ben walk to the ambulance and Sam leans against the Impala next to Dean. _

_"__Man, I hate camping," Dean says._

_"__Me too," Sam says._

_"__Sam, you know we're gonna find Dad, right?" Dean says._

_"__Yeah, I know. But in the meantime? I'm driving," Sam says. _

_Dean tosses Sam the keys and they drive off. _

_The screen goes black. _

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

After they watched the next episode, Sam had gone off to his room. When they started dinner, Jessica asked where he was, but Dean said that he wouldn't be joining them.

She wasn't going to, but she went to his room anyway, even though Dean tried to stop her.

"Jess, wait. You can't go in there. It's not a good idea," Dean tells her, standing in front of Sam's door.

"Why not?" She asks. "Dean, I've been dead for what, like 12 years? I need to be there for him. He may not be at his best, but he needs support."

"Yes, and I agree with you, Jessica. But he's not okay. And you don't know what could be going on in there, okay, so just let me go in first, alright? See what's happening?" Dean bargains, trying to protect her.

As he opened the door, he saw Sam lying on the floor, not moving, with an empty syringe next to him.

"Damn it!" He yelled, rushing into the room, starting CPR. "Jessica, go get Naloxone from the medicine cabinet in the kitchen! Now!"

She saw Sam and froze. He looked so helpless, lying on the floor like that. Then Dean's orders snapped her back into action and she ran into the kitchen, and everyone looked at her with concern.

"Jessica? What happened, honey?" Mary asks.

"Sam just overdosed," she cried. "Damn it, where's the goddamn medicine cabinet!"

Bobby walked over to the correct cabinet and pulled out the Naloxone, and everybody followed him to Sam's room, and they found Dean on top of him, pounding on his chest.

"Come on, Sammy, don't die on me, not like this, come on, man," he pleaded, and then he grabbed the Naloxone from Bobby and shot it into his nose.

It took a few seconds, but eventually Sam gasped for air and sat up, breathing hard.

Dean immediately wrapped his arms around him and helped him into bed. All the people in the room gave them some space.

When Dean finally left the room, Mary went in to check on him. She saw his eyes closed and went to leave when he said, "I'm not asleep."

He opened his eyes but looked away. Mary went and sat on the edge of the bed.

"Sam," she said, looking down.

"Mom, look, I don't want any pity, okay, so just stop," he said, tears welling in his eyes.

"Sweetie, I wasn't going to give you any pity. I just wanted to check up on you, you know, see if you wanted to talk," she told him.

He slowly looked at her and sighed.

"Thanks. I, uh, I just don't know if I'm ready for that just yet," he said and she smiled.

"That's okay, honey, but when you are ready, please come to me. I know I wasn't there for you before, and I'm sorry about that. But I am here now," she said and he gave her a small smile as she wrapped her arms around him. He soon fell asleep and Jessica took over for Mary, wrapping her arms around Sam as he slept.


	4. Dead in the Water

**Dead in the Water**

**Lake Manitoc, Wisconsin**

_"Morning, Daddy," Sophie Carlton says as she enters the kitchen on the screen._

_"Morning, sweetheart," her father, Bill Carlton, responds from his newspaper._

_"All these workouts, Soph, I don't know. Guys don't like buff girls," Will, her brother, says as Sophie grabs something from the fridge._

_"Yeah, well, girls don't like guys who still live at home," Sophie says back._

_"Ha ha ha," Will responds._

_"Ha ha," Sophie says before heading outside._

_"Be careful," Bill says before she closes the door._

_"I will," she says._

_As Sophie swims, she keeps coming up, seemingly hearing something. Then, all of a sudden, a hand grabs her ankle and pulls her under._

"Oh my god!" Jess flinches against Sam as she gets pulled under. "That's horrible!"

Sam just smiles and kisses the top of her head, turning back to the screen. Ever since his overdose, Sam had been getting more and more distant, pushing everybody away. It took a lot of convincing just to get him to watch with them again today.

She forced a smile back and snuggled into his side.

The scene switches to a diner, where Dean is sitting.

_"Can I get you anything else?" Wendy, the waitress asks Dean, shooting him a smile._

_Sam comes over and sits down. "Just the check, please," Sam says._

_"Okay," Wendy says, walking away._

_Dean drops his head and looks at Sam._

_"You know, Sam, we are allowed to have fun once in a while," Dean complains. He points to Wendy. "That's fun."_

_Sam just looks at him. Dean hands him the newspaper._

_"Here, take a look at this, I think I got one. Lake Manitoc, Wisconsin. Last week Sophie Carlton, eighteen, walks into the lake, doesn't walk out. Authorities dragged the water; nothing. Sophie Carlton is the third Lake Manitoc drowning this year. None of the other bodies were found either. They had a funeral two days ago," Dean tells him._

_"A funeral?" Sam asks in surprise._

_"Yeah, it's weird, they buried an empty coffin. For, uh, closure or whatever," Dean responds._

_"Closure? What closure? People don't just disappear, Dean. Other people just stop looking for them," Sam snaps._

_"Something you want to say to me?" Dean says back. Sam sighs._

_"The trail for Dad. It's getting colder every day," Sam says._

_"Exactly. So what are we supposed to do?" Dean asks._

_"I don't know. Something. Anything," Sam responds._

_"You know what? I'm sick of this attitude. You don't think I wanna find Dad as much as you do?" Dean says._

_"Yeah, I know you do, it's just—" Sam gets cut off._

_"I'm the one that's been with him every single day for the past two years, while you've been off to college going to pep rallies. We will find Dad, but until then, we're gonna kill everything bad between here and there. Okay?" Dean says. Sam rolls his eyes._

_"All right, Lake Manitoc. Hey!" Sam says, trying to get Dean's attention._

_Dean looks at Sam. "Huh?"_

_"How far?"_

**CARLTON HOUSE**

_The Impala is shown driving past a sign that reads 'Lake Manitoc, WI.'_

_Finally, it pulls up in front of the Carlton house._

_Dean goes and knocks on the door and Will Carlton opens it._

_"Will Carlton?" Dean asks._

_"Yeah, that's right," Will says._

_"I'm Agent Ford. This is Agent Hamill. We're with the US Wildlife Service," Dean says, holding up an ID._

_"She was about a hundred yards out. That's where she got dragged down," Will tells them, standing by the lake._

_"And you're sure she didn't just drown?" Sam asks._

_"Yeah. She was a varsity swimmer. She practically grew up in that lake. She was as safe out there as in her own bathtub," Will responds._

_"So no splashing? No signs of distress?" Sam asks again._

_"No, that's what I'm telling you," Will repeats._

_"Did you see any shadows in the water? Maybe some dark shape breach the surface?" Sam asks._

_"No. Again, she was really far out there," Will says._

_"You ever see any strange tracks by the shoreline?" Dean asks._

_"No, never. Why? What do you think is out there?" Will asks._

_"We'll let you know as soon as we do," Dean says, starting to head back to the car._

_"What about your father?" Sam asks, and Dean stops and turns back around. "Can we talk to him?"_

_"Look, if you don't mind, I mean… he didn't see anything and he's kind of been through a lot," Will says, looking back at his father._

_"We understand," Sam says. They get in the Impala and leave._

**POLICE STATION**

_"Now, I'm sorry, but why does the Wildlife Service care about an accidental drowning?" Jake, the Sheriff, asks them._

_"You sure it's accidental? Will Carlton saw something grab his sister," Sam says._

_"Like what?" Jake asks. "Here, sit, please. There are no indigenous carnivores in that lake. There's nothing even big enough to pull down a person, unless it was the Loch Ness Monster."_

_"Yeah," Dean laughs, sharing a look with Sam._

_"Will Carlton was traumatized, and sometimes the mind plays tricks. Still. We dragged that entire lake. We even ran a sonar sweep, just to be sure. There was nothing down there," Jake tells them._

_"That's weird, though. I mean, that's the third missing body this year," Dean says._

_"I know. These are people from my town. These are people I care about," Jake agrees._

_"I know," Dean says._

_"Anyway… All this, it won't be a problem much longer," Jake says._

_"What do you mean?" Dean asks._

_"Well, the dam, of course," Jake says._

_"Of course, the dam. It, uh, it sprung a leak," Dean guesses._

_"It's falling apart. And the feds won't give us the grant to repair it, so they've opened the spillway. In another six months, there won't be much of a lake. There won't be much of a town, either. But as Federal Wildlife, you already knew that," Jake says, looking at them questioningly._

At that, everybody but Sam, Dean, and John burst out laughing. Sam and Dean just rolled their eyes while John looked at them in confusion.

"Sprung a leak?" John asks.

"Oh, shut up," Dean says, trying not to laugh. Sam starts laughing at him as the video continues playing.

_"Exactly," Dean says._

_A young woman, Andrea Barr, taps on the door. "Sorry, am I interrupting? I can come back later," she says._

_"Gentlemen, this is my daughter," Jake introduces._

_"Pleasure to meet you. I'm Dean," he says, shaking her hand._

_"Andrea Barr. Hi," she smiles._

_"Hi," Dean smiles back._

_"They're from the Wildlife service. About the lake," Jake says._

_Andrea's son, Lucas, steps out from behind her._

_"Oh, hey there. What's your name?" Dean asks._

_Lucas ducks away without saying a word and Andrea follows._

_"His name is Lucas," Jake answers._

_"Is he okay?" Sam asks._

_"My grandson's been through a lot. We all have," Jake responds. "Well, if there's anything else I can do for you, please let me know."_

_"Thanks. You know, now that you mention it, could you point us in the direction of a reasonably priced motel?" Dean asks._

_"Lakefront Motel. Go around the corner. It's about two blocks south," Andrea says._

_"Two—would you mind showing us?" Dean asks, pretending to be confused._

"Oh my god, can you do anything without flirting?" Jo exclaims, laughing hysterically.

"Um, excuse me, I wasn't flirting," Dean defends himself.

"No, not flirting, just trying to get her into bed," Sam joins in, fist-bumping with Jo.

Charlie just laughs and punches Dean, who slumped in his seat.

_"You want me to walk you two blocks?" Andrea laughs._

_"Not if it's any trouble," Dean says._

_"I'm headed that way anyway," Andrea says with a laugh. "I'll be back to pick up Lucas at three."_

_Andrea turns to Lucas, "We'll go to the park, okay sweetie?" She kisses Lucas on the head._

_"Thanks again," Sam says as they leave._

_"So, cute kid," Dean says as Andrea walks them to the motel._

_Sam laughs and Dean glares at him._

_"Thanks," Andrea replies._

_"Kids are the best, huh," Dean says. Andrea just ignores him._

_They stop in front of the motel._

_"There it is. Like I said, two blocks," she says. "Must be hard, with your sense of direction, never being able to find your way to a decent pickup line. Enjoy your stay!"_

"Damn! I like her!" Charlie exclaims.

_"Kids are the best? You don't even like kids," Sam laughs when Andrea is gone._

_"I love kids!" Dean says._

_"Name three children that you even know," Sam says._

_Dean tries but can't think of anyone. Sam laughs and walks into the motel._

_"I'm thinking!" Dean says, following Sam._

**MOTEL**

_"So there are the three drowning victims this year," Sam says._

_"Any before that?" Dean asks._

_"Uh, yeah. Six more spread out over the past thirty-five years. Those bodies were never recovered either. If there is something out there, it's picking up its pace," Sam says._

_"So, what, we got a lake monster on a binge?" Dean jokes._

_"This whole lake monster theory, it, it bugs me," Sam replies._

_"Why?" Dean asks, looking over Sam's shoulder at a news article._

_"Loch Ness, uh, Lake Champlain, there are literally hundreds of eyewitness accounts, but here, almost nothing," Sam tells him. "Whatever it is out there, no one's living to talk about it."_

_As Sam scrolls, Dean points at a picture. "Wait, Barr, Christopher Barr. Where have I heard that name before?"_

_"Christopher Barr, the victim in May," Sam says, reading the article. "Oh. Christopher Barr was Andrea's husband. Lucas's father. Apparently he took Lucas out swimming. Lucas was on a floating platform when Chris drowned. Two hours before the kid got rescued."_

"Oh my god, that poor child," Ellen says.

"Yeah, that kid had to watch his father die. That's not something you get over easily," Mary responds.

Sam and Dean both glance at her. "What?" She asks.

"Well, you know, angels can kind of, you know, turn back time. One of them sent us back and we saw everything that happened with your dad," Dean says.

"Oh god. Wait, angels?" Mary says.

"Yeah, long story," Sam says.

"What are you boys talking about?" John interrupts.

"Long story, again. You'll see it eventually," Sam says again, and he turns the episode back on.

_Sam clicks on the picture. "Maybe we have an eyewitness after all."_

_"No wonder that kid was so freaked out. Watching one of your parents die isn't something you just get over," Dean says, a distant look in his eyes._

**PARK**

_Sam and Dean walk up to Andrea, who is sitting on a park bench._

_"Can we join you?" Sam asks._

_"I'm here with my son," she says, pointing to Lucas._

_"Oh. Mind if I say hi?" Dean says, walking over to Lucas._

_"Tell your friend this whole Jerry Maguire thing is not gonna work on me," Andrea tells Sam._

_"I don't think that's what this is about," Sam says._

_Dean approaches Lucas._

_"How's it going?" Dean asks Lucas._

_He doesn't respond. Dean sits down and picks up one of the toy army men. "Oh, I used to love these things," Dean says._

_Lucas just keeps coloring._

_"So crayons is more your thing? That's cool. Chicks dig artists," Dean tries again._

_Dean takes a look at the drawings. "Hey, these are pretty good. You mind if I sit and draw with you for a while? I'm not so bad myself."_

_He starts drawing with Lucas. "You know, I'm thinking you can hear me, you just don't want to talk. I don't know exactly what happened to your dad, but I know it was something real bad. I think I know how you feel. When I was your age, I saw something," Dean pauses. "Anyway. Well, maybe you don't think anyone will listen to you, or, uh, or believe you. I want you to know that I will. You don't even have to say anything. You could draw me a picture about what you saw that day, with your dad, on the lake. Okay, no problem. This is for you," he finishes._

_Dean shows him the picture. Lucas doesn't look up._

_"This is my family. That's my dad. That's my mom. That's my geek brother, and that's me," Dean pauses, and Lucas stays silent. "Alright, so I'm a sucky artist. I'll see you around, Lucas."_

_Once Dean leaves, Lucas picks up Dean's picture._

_As Dean approaches Sam and Andrea, he hears their conversation. "Lucas hasn't said a word, not even to me. Not since his dad's accident."_

_"Yeah, we heard. Sorry," Dean says. Andrea nods._

_"What are the doctors saying?" Sam asks._

_"That it's a kind of post-traumatic stress," Andrea says._

_"That can't be easy. For either of you," Sam says._

_"We moved in with my dad. He helps out a lot. It's just… when I think about what Lucas went through, what he saw…" Andrea stops._

_"Kids are tough," Dean comforts her._

_"You know, he used to have such life. He was hard to keep up with, to tell you the truth. Now he just sits there. Drawing those pictures, playing with those army men. I just wish—" Andrea gets cut off as Lucas walks up to them._

_"Hey sweetie," she says._

_Lucas hands Dean a picture. "Thanks. Thanks, Lucas," Dean says in surprise._

_Andrea looks at him in shock._

**CARLTON HOUSE**

_Bill is sitting in his chair, doing nothing. Will comes up to him._

_"Hey, Dad? You, you should probably eat something. I'm gonna make some dinner, okay?" Will says. He heads to the kitchen._

_The water from the sink turns green, and the sink starts filling up. Will puts his hand in to try and drain the water, but something pulls his arm and he struggles for a few seconds, and his head goes under. Soon he stops struggling, and the water drains from the sink, and Will is dead._

"Oh man, this is getting intense," Jessica says.

"Yeah well, it's even worse when you find out what is actually going on," Sam says.

**MOTEL**

_"So, I think it's safe to say we can rule out Nessie," Sam says, walking into the room._

_"What do you mean?" Dean asks. Sam sits down._

_"I just drove past the Carlton house. There was an ambulance there. Will Carlton is dead," Sam says._

_"He drowned?" Dean asks. Sam nods._

_"Yep. In the sink."_

_"What the hell? So you're right, this isn't a creature. We're dealing with something else," Dean agrees._

_"Yeah, but what?" Sam asks._

_"I don't know. Water wraith, maybe? Some kind of demon? I mean, something that controls water… water that comes from the same source," Dean realizes._

_"The lake," Sam says._

_"Yeah."_

_"Which would explain why it's upping the body count. The lake is draining. It'll be dry in a few months. Whatever this thing is, whatever it wants, it's running out of time," Sam finishes._

_"And if it can get through the pipes, it can get to anyone, anywhere," Dean says, standing up._

_"And we do know one thing for sure. We know this has got something to do with Bill Carlton," Sam says._

_"Yeah, it took both his kids."_

_"And I've been asking around. Lucas's dad, Chris—Bill Carlton's godson," Sam continues._

_"Let's go pay Mr. Carlton a visit," Dean says._

**LAKE**

_Bill Carlton is sitting at a bench by the dock as Sam and Dean approach._

_"Mr. Carlton?" Sam says. Bill looks up._

_"We'd like to ask you a few questions if you don't mind."_

_"We're from the Department—" Dean gets cut off by Bill._

_"I don't care who you're with. I've answered enough questions today," Bill says._

_"Your son said he saw something in that lake. What about you? You ever see anything out there? Mr. Carlton, Sophie's drowning and Will's death—we think there might be a connection to you or your family," Sam says._

_"My children are gone. It's… it's worse than dying," Bill says, turning around. "Go away. Please."_

_Sam and Dean get back to the Impala._

_"So what do you think?" Sam asks._

_"Aw, I think the poor guy's been through hell. I also think he's not telling us something," Dean replies._

_"So now what?" Sam asks. Dean stops._

_"What is it?"_

_"Huh," Dean says. He is looking at the Carlton house. "Maybe Bill not's the only one who knows something."_

_The house in the picture Lucas gave Dean is the same house as Bill Carlton's._

**DEVINS/BARR HOUSE**

_"I'm sorry, but I don't think it's a good idea," Andrea tells Sam and Dean._

_"I just need to talk to him," Dean pleads. "Just for a few minutes."_

_"He won't say anything. What good's it gonna do?" Andrea asks._

_"Andrea, we think more people might get hurt. We think something's happening out there," Sam explains._

_"My husband, the others, they drowned. That's all," Andrea insists._

_"If that's what you really believe, then we'll go. But if you think there's even a possibility that something else could be going on here, please let me talk to your son," Dean says._

_She takes them to Lucas's bedroom. He is on the floor, coloring. Dean crouches down next to him._

_"Hey, Lucas. You remember me?" Dean asks._

_"You know, I, uh, I wanted to thank you for the last drawing. But the thing is, I need your help again," Dean starts. He pulls out the last picture. "How did you know to draw this? Did you know something bad was gonna happen? Maybe you could nod yes or no for me."_

_Lucas keeps drawing._

_"You're scared. It's okay. I understand. See, when I was your age, I saw something real bad happen to my mom, and I was scared, too. I didn't feel like talking, just like you. But see—my mom, I know she wanted me to be brave. I think about that every day. And I do my best to be brave. And maybe, your dad wants you to be brave too," Dean tells Lucas._

Mary looks at Dean in awe when he talks to Lucas.

_Lucas looks up at him. He hands Dean a picture of another house and a church, with a bike and a little boy._

_"Thanks, Lucas," Dean says._

**IMPALA**

_"Andrea said the kid never drew like that before his dad died," Dean says._

_"There are cases—going through a traumatic experience could make people more sensitive to premonitions, psychic tendencies," Sam explains._

_"Whatever's out there, what if Lucas is tapping into it somehow? I mean, it's only a matter of time before somebody else drowns, so if you got a better lead, please," Dean says._

_"Alright, we got another house to find," Sam says. _

_"The only problem is there are about a thousand yellow two-story houses in this county," Dean complains._

_"See this church? I bet there's less than a thousand of those around here," Sam says._

_"Oh, college boy thinks he's so smart," Dean jokes._

_"You know, um, what you said about Mom… you never told me that before," Sam says._

_"It's no big deal. Oh God, we're not going to have to hug or anything, are we?" Dean says. Sam just smiles._

**SWEENEY HOUSE**

_Sam and Dean approach a white church and yellow house that matches Lucas's drawing. They knock on the door. An old lady answers._

_"We're sorry to bother you, ma'am—but does a little boy live here, by any chance? He might wear a blue ball cap, has a red bicycle?" Dean asks. _

_The woman frowns. "No sir. Not for a very long time. Peter's been gone for thirty-five years now. The police never—I never had any idea what happened. He just disappeared."_

_"Losing him, you know—it's worse than dying," she says. _

_"Did he disappear from here? I mean, from this house?" Dean asks._

_"He was supposed to ride his bike straight home after school, and he never showed up," the woman says sadly._

_Dean picks up a picture from one of the tables and turns it over. The back reads 'Peter Sweeney and Billy Carlton, nineteen seventy.'_

**LAKE**

_"You've taken everything, everyone. I've got nothing left. I didn't understand. I didn't believe. Now I think I do. I think I finally know what you want," Bill says to the lake._

**IMPALA**

_"Okay, this little boy Peter Sweeney vanishes, and this is all connected to Bill Carlton somehow," Sam says._

_"Yeah, Bill sure as hell seems to be hiding something, huh?" Dean responds._

_"And Bill, the people he loves, they're all getting punished," Sam finishes._

_"So what if Bill did something to Peter?" Dean suggests._

_"What if Bill killed him?" Sam suggests._

_"Peter's spirit would be furious. It'd want revenge. It's possible," Dean says._

_The Impala pulls up to the Carlton house. As they get out of the car they hear an engine roaring._

_"Mr. Carlton?" Sam yells._

_"Hey, check it out," Dean says. Bill is taking his boat out. _

_"Mr. Carlton! You need to come back! Come out of the water! Turn the boat around!" Dean yells._

_"Mr. Carlton!" Sam yells one last time as the boat suddenly flips and Bill disappears._

**POLICE STATION**

_Lucas seems agitated. "Baby, what's wrong?" Andrea asks. "Sam, Dean. I didn't expect to see you here."_

_"So now you're on a first-name basis. What are you doing here?" Jake asks._

_"I brought you dinner," Andrea says."I'm sorry, sweetheart, I don't really have the time," Jake apologizes._

_"I heard about Bill Carlton. Is it true? Is something going on with the lake?" Andrea asks._

_"Right now we don't know what the truth is. But I think it might be better if you and Lucas went on home," Jake says._

_Lucas looks up and whines and grabs Dean's arm._

_"Lucas, hey, what is it?" Dean asks gently. "Lucas?"_

_"Lucas?" Andrea says._

_"Lucas, it's okay, you can tell me," Dean says._

_Andrea pulls Lucas away and drags him outside. Jake leads Sam and Dean into his office._

_"Okay, just so I'm clear, you see… something attack Bill's boat, sending Bill—who is a very good swimmer, by the way—into the lake, and you never see him again?" Jake says incredulously._

_"Yeah, that about sums it up," Dean says."And I'm supposed to believe this, even though I've already sonar-swept that entire lake? And what you're describing is impossible? And you're not really Wildlife Service?" Jake says. _

_Sam and Dean glance at each other._

_"That's right, I checked. Department's never heard of you two," Jake says._

"Ha! Busted!" Charlie yells.

"Okay, don't get too excited, that almost never happens," Dean whines.

"Yeah, well, it just did," Jo says with a smile, and she high fives Charlie.

_"See now, we can explain that," Dean tries._

_"Enough. Please. The only reason you're breathing free air is one of Bill's neighbors saw him steering out that boat just before you did. So, we have a couple of options here. I can arrest you for impersonating government officials and hold you as material witnesses to Bill Carlton's disappearance. Or, we can chalk this all up to a bad day, you get into your car, you put this town in your rearview mirror, and you don't ever darken my doorstep again."_

_"Door number two sounds good," Sam says before Dean gets them into more trouble._

_"That's the one I'd pick," Jake says._

**IMPALA**

_The light turns green and the Impala doesn't move._

_"Green," Sam says._

_"What?" Dean asks._

_"Light's green," Sam repeats._

_Dean turns the wrong way. _

_"Uh, the interstate's the other way," Sam points out._

_"I know," Dean says._

_"But Dean, this job, I think it's over," Sam says._

_"I'm not so sure," Dean says._

_"If Bill murdered Peter Sweeney and Peter's spirit got it's revenge, case closed. The spirit should be at rest," Sam says._

_"Alright, so what if we take off and this thing isn't over? You know, what if we've missed something? What if more people get hurt?" _

_"But why would you think that?"_

_"Because Lucas was really scared," Dean says._

_"That's what this is about?"_

_"I just don't want to leave this town until I know the kid's okay."_

_"Who are you? And what have you done with my brother?" _

_Dean glances at Sam. "Shut up."_

**DEVINS/BARR HOUSE**

_Andrea has started a bath. The water from the faucet starts to turn green, but Andrea doesn't notice. _

_Suddenly something pulls her down and she starts screaming. Lucas starts pounding on the door from the outside. _

_Andrea continues to struggle, but the spirit is winning._

_Outside the house, Dean rings the doorbell, and Lucas immediately opens the door, breathing hard. They run after him to the bathroom door, where water is flooding the hallway._

_Dean kicks in the door and Sam runs in while Dean holds Lucas. Sam keeps pulling Andrea up until he finally gets her out of the bathtub. He holds her as the water slowly retreats into the drain._

_Later, Andrea is sitting on the couch wrapped in a towel. _

_"Can you tell me?" Sam asks._

_"No. It doesn't make any sense," Andrea responds. "I'm going crazy." _

_"No, you're not. Tell me what happened. Everything," Sam says._

_"I heard… I thought I heard… there was this voice," Andrea says._

_"What did it say?" Sam asks._

_"It said… it said 'come play with me.' What's happening," Andrea cries._

_Dean is flipping through a book that says 'Jake—12 years old.'_

_"Do you recognize the kids in these pictures?" He asks Andrea._

_"What? Um, no. I mean, except that's my dad right there. He must have been about twelve in these pictures."_

_"Chris Barr's drowning. The connection wasn't to Bill Carlton. It must have been to the sheriff," Dean says._

_"Bill and the sheriff—they were both involved with Peter," Sam says._

_"What about Chris? My dad—what are you talking about?" Andrea asks._

_"Lucas?" Dean says, looking at Lucas, who is staring out the window. "Lucas, what is it?"_

_Lucas opens the door and walks outside. Everyone follows._

_"Lucas, honey?" Andrea says._

_Lucas stops and looks at the ground, then at Dean._

_"You and Lucas get back to the house and stay there, okay?" Dean tells Andrea. _

_She nods and reluctantly pulls Lucas back to the house._

_Sam and Dean get shovels and start digging. Eventually, the shovels clank and they dig out a red bike._

_"Peter's bike," Sam says._

_"Who are you?" Jake says from behind them. He is pointing his gun at them._

_"Put the gun down, Jake," Sam says._

_"How did you know that was there?" Jake asks._

_"What happened? You and Bill killed Peter, drowned him in the lake, and then buried the bike? You can't bury the truth, Jake. Nothing stays buried," Dean says._

_Andrea sees Jake pointing a gun at them and turns to Lucas, "Go to your room, sweetie. Now. Lock the door and wait for me. Don't come out."_

_"I don't know what you're talking about," Jake says. Andrea comes up behind him._

_"You and Bill killed Peter Sweeney thirty-five years ago. That's what the hell I'm talking about," Dean responds._

_"Dad!" Andrea says._

_"And now you got one seriously pissed off spirit," Dean says._

_"It's gonna take Andrea. Lucas, everyone you love. It's gonna drown them. And it's gonna drag their bodies God knows where, so you can feel the same pain Peter's mom felt. And then, after that, it's gonna take you, and it's not gonna stop until it does," Sam says._

_"Yeah, and how do you know that?" Jake asks._

_"Because that's exactly what it did to Bill Carlton," Sam says._

_"Listen to yourselves, both of you. You're insane," Jake yells._

_"I don't really give a rat's ass what you think of us. But if we're gonna bring down this spirit, we need to find the remains, salt them, and burn them into dust. Now tell me you buried Peter somewhere. Tell me you didn't just let him go in the lake," Dean says._

_"Dad, is any of this true?" Andrea asks._

_"No. Don't listen to them. They're liars and they're dangerous," Jake says._

_"Something tried to drown me. Chris died on that lake. Dad, look at me," Andrea yells, and he does. "Tell me you—you didn't kill anyone."_

_Jake looks away. "Oh my god," Andrea says._

_"Billy and I were at the lake. Peter was the smallest one. We always bullied him, but this time, it got rough. We were holding his head under the water. We didn't mean to. But we held him under too long and, he drowned. We let the body go, and it sank," Jake explains._

"Oh god. That's horrible," Jess says and everyone nods their head in agreement.

"Yeah. But he made it right, in a way," Dean says.

_"Oh, Andrea, we were kids. We were so scared. It was a mistake. But, Andrea, to say that I have anything to do with these drownings, with Chris, because of some ghost? It's not rational," Jake says._

_"Alright, listen to me, all of you. We need to get you away from this lake, as far as we can, right now," Dean says._

_Andrea looks at the lake and gasps. "Lucas!" Jake yells._

_"Lucas!" Dean yells._

_"Lucas! Baby, stay where you are!" Andrea yells._

_A hand comes up and grabs Lucas and pulls him under. Jake sees Peter's head and stops. He recognizes him. _

_Sam and Dean run to the dock and jump in. _

_"Oh my god!" Andrea yells, taking off her jacket to jump in._

_"Andrea, stay there!" Sam yells._

_"No! Lucas!" Andrea yells._

_"We'll get him! Just stay on the dock!" Sam yells again._

_Dean comes up for air and Sam follows a few seconds later._

_"Sam?" Dean asks. Sam shakes his head._

_"Lucas, where are you?" Andrea cries._

_ Jake wades in down the shore. _

_"Peter, if you can hear me… please, Peter, I'm sorry. I'm so—I'm so sorry," Jake cries._

_"Daddy, no!" Andrea yells._

_"Peter. Lucas—he's, he's just a little boy. Please, it's not his fault, it's mine. Please take me," Jake says._

_Sam and Dean come up for air._

_"Jake, no!" Dean yells._

_"Just let it be over!" Jake yells. Jake is dragged down._

_"Daddy! Daddy! No!" Andrea yells._

_Dean and Sam dive down again._

_"No!" Andrea yells._

_Sam comes up, shaking his head. Dean comes up, holding Lucas, who isn't moving._

_Andrea cries no over and over again._

"Did he die! Oh god, no," Charlie cries, tears threatening to fall.

"You'll see," Dean says.

**STREET**

_"Look, we're not gonna save everybody," Sam says._

_"I know," Dean responds._

_"Sam, Dean," Andrea says, walking up with Lucas._

_"Hey," Dean says._

_"We're glad we caught you. We just, um, we made you lunch for the road," she says. "Lucas insisted on making the sandwiches himself."_

_"Can I give it to them now?" Lucas says. Dean smiles at hearing Lucas's voice._

_"Of course," Andrea says, kissing his head._

_"Come on, Lucas, let's load this into the car," Dean says, leading Lucas to the Impala._

_"How you holding up?" Sam asks Andrea._

_"It's just gonna take a long time to sort through everything, you know?" She says._

_Sam sighs, "Andrea, I'm sorry."_

_Andrea shakes her head, "You saved my son. I can't ask for more than that. Dad loved me. He loved Lucas. No matter what I did, I just have to hold on to that."_

_"Alright, if you're gonna be talking now, this is a very important phrase, so I want you to repeat it one more time," Dean says to Lucas._

_"Zeppelin rules!" Lucas says. _

_"That's right. Up high," Dean says, holding up his hand. Lucas high fives him._

_"You take care of your mom, alright?" Dean says. _

_"Alright," Lucas says, grinning._

_Andrea walks up to Dean and kisses him._

_Dean just smiles and moves around the car. "Sam, move your ass. We're gonna run out of daylight before we hit the road."_

_They drive away._

"Damn. That was kind of a creepy episode," Jess says, and Dean laughs.

"That's a spirit for ya," Dean says.

"Alright, well, I'm gonna go to bed, so, 'night everyone," Sam says, heading to bed. Dean follows.

Jessica just watches him walk away.

Mary puts a hand on Jess's shoulder. "I'll talk to him."

Jessica gives her a grateful smile.

When she reaches Sam's room, she sees Dean already in there with him. She listens in on their conversation.

"Seriously, Sam, this has got to stop. It's getting out of hand," she hears Dean say, clearly angry.

"I mean, cutting yourself? I had my suspicions, but walking in on you actually doing it? What if it was Jessica that walked in here? Or mom? Or hell, dad? He would kick your ass," Dean continues. Mary gets mad at that statement.

"Come on, Dean, just leave me alone," Sam complains.

"No, I'm not going to just leave you alone. You're killing yourself, Sam," Dean says. Mary feels a few tears begin to fall down her cheeks.

"Dean, please, I just need it to stop," she hears Sam say, which is confusing.

"You need what to stop? The headaches, I mean, are you having visions again?" Dean asks.

"No. You know what it is, don't act like you don't," Sam snaps. Mary furrows her brow in confusion.

"What, Lucifer? Sam, I thought he was gone, you know, for good. I thought Castiel took him for you," Dean says and she was really confused now.

"Dean, he took the hallucinations, and my insanity, I guess, but not the memories. I still remember what he did to me in Hell. That's not going to go away. The cutting, and the drugs, and the alcohol, are the only things that can keep the nightmares and flashbacks somewhat at bay," Sam says.

Mary is really confused now, so she quickly walks into the room. They both look at her in shock.

"Oh, please, I can sneak around too. What are you boys talking about? I mean, Lucifer? Seriously?" Mary says.

"Mom! This is real. Sam sacrificed himself to save the world. And in doing so, he ended up in Lucifer's Cage, with the Devil himself, for 180 years," Dean explains.

"What?" She says in shock.

"Yeah. Lucifer was free, and long story short, I was Lucifer's 'true vessel' and Dean was Michael's, so when the time came for the big biblical battle, I let him in, fought back, took control of him while he was inside me, and jumped into the Cage to save the world. And I ended up being tortured by the Devil for 180 years," Sam explains.

Mary just looks at him in shock.

"Oh, Sammy, I'm so sorry. You didn't deserve any of that," Mary finally says, and she wraps her arms around him as she starts crying.

Eventually, they fell asleep, Mary crying for Sam.


End file.
